


Drunken Awe

by Sicklywrites



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, NSFW, Slow Burn, Smut, Swearing, drunk alco husband is bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:39:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 34,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8186147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sicklywrites/pseuds/Sicklywrites
Summary: The new farmer has moved into Stardew Valley, and she's not like everyone else. Not quite. Shane likes that about her... eventually.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All aboard the Shane train, woo woo!

She gave out presents.

That’s all he could really remember about the new farmer before that night on the pier. That night she guzzled down the beer he gave her and he looked at her in a dazed, drunken awe. That, and her name was Esther.

She spent her first months in Stardew Valley just trying to impress everyone, passing out anything she could spare just to make them happy. She seemed like a child then, fresh to the farming world and to the Valley itself. She came up to him every now and then with a cluster hot peppers. The first time she did, she had said with such enthusiasm: _“Marnie told me these were your favourite.”_

He almost rejected them but she insisted and was gone before he could give them back, off to the mines. He saw her again coming back home from JojaMart, a bag heavy and lumpy with what he could only assume was rocks and ores. He didn’t much care then, but thinking back, she was so… alive.

At first he hated it, how chipper and friendly she was. Every time she said hello, he would brush her off hoping that she wouldn’t try again. But she always did, maybe just out of politeness, or maybe out of desperation to make a friend. He felt bad for his drunken hate, but how could she be so happy?

He let his eyes stray from the punch bowl that served as the centrepiece for the Flower Dance festival’s array food, pouring some absently and trying to find her amongst the crowd. She was standing by Alex and Elliot, a lemonade in her hand, talking up a storm. They were both smiling and getting along with her. Of course they were, she was just like that.

He swallowed a sourness in his throat and looked down at his punch, which had come close to overflowing when he was looking away, and turned to the seat at the edge of the festival grounds. He sat down, staring at his punch more than drinking it.

That night at the pier was so embarrassing to him. Drunk, of course, babbling shit to someone he barely knew. He wished he could take it back or at least be comforted by the idea that she had somehow forgotten, or didn’t care enough to remember. That was possible, right? She had so much to do and was always going _somewhere._

He’d seen that farm of hers once when Marnie asked him to deliver a letter for her. It was impressive, really. Cows, goats, pigs, chickens. Even a single rabbit nibbling in the grass, which at first he thought was wild. As he walked back out towards the bus stop a sheep approached him, which is the only reason he turned his head to look in that direction. There he saw her, in the distance on the other side of the farm past the fenced off area for the animals. She was peacefully watering her crops, and in that patch of vegetables, a hot pepper plant.

Nonetheless, the night at the pier was embarrassing and he hoped it had all been some drunken hallucination. In fact he thought it was for a while, until she came into the saloon the next night and casually asked him: _“Are you feeling better since last night?”_

His heart sunk.

“I’m alive,” he said simply, hungover. His head was throbbing, and that was such a common feeling that when he wasn’t sore all over and thumping in the head, it was abnormal to him. Esther looked concerned. Concerned in a different way than everyone else. Everyone else’s concerned look always had that frustration in it. Like they felt bad but they wanted to say ‘ _you’re such a piece of shit, Shane, get your life together.’_

But _she_ didn’t. She just looked concerned. That’s all there was to it. That almost bothered him but it was admittedly just as endearing if he allowed himself to think about it. About her, in general.

He felt like he’d just woken up from some half asleep nap when the bench he was sitting on creaked and he realised she was sitting next to him.

“Hey, Shane,” she smiled.

“Hey, Esther,” he responded, and half-heartedly panicked wondering if he’d somehow gotten her name wrong. But her smile only widened at him before she looked back at the festival.

“You’re not going to dance?” she asked. He screwed up his face.

“No.”

“I understand. I’m nervous myself,” she said.

“I’m not nervous,” he said a little too defensively. He wasn’t nervous, true, but he mostly didn’t dance because he would feel like a moron. That, and nobody would want to dance with him. He didn’t want to dance with anyone else, either.

“No, no, no, I’m not saying _you’re_ nervous, I’m just… you know, _new_ , and I don’t know if anyone really wants me up there dancing with them.”

With his cup almost to his mouth, he side-eyed her.

“Everyone likes you, though,” he said. She shook her head doubtfully.

“I don’t think that’s entirely true.”

“Alright, but you were just laughing with the guys over there.”

She shook her head again.

“I still don’t think either of them would want to dance,” she said. “Even if they did, I don’t feel up to it.”

Shane huffed in amusement, taking a sip. Wasn’t she up for everything, and all the time?

“That’s usually my excuse.”

She smiled at him, and he could see the anxiety in her eyes.

“I’ll just sit here if that’s okay. I don’t want to embarrass myself.”

He nodded, continuing to drink. He stretched out his legs into the sun from their seat in the shade and felt the warmth on his skin. The music started and suddenly everyone was in position to dance. Pretending to spot a bird in the tree – or at least that’s what he’d say if she asked why he was looking in her direction – he turned to her. He realised with a disheartened sigh that she looked sad. She wanted to be out there in the sun, flowers in her hair like the other girls, and dancing.

He took another sip.


	2. Chapter 2

Esther picked the little red peppers off their stalks and put them into a basket. She felt quite out of place with the crops part of farming, and more at home with the cows, sheep, chickens, etcetera. She put the basket down on the front porch, taking her horse’s lead and clicking with her mouth to guide him from the stable.

“Come on, Rover,” she said, and mounted him with ease. He was a good boy.

She rode down to the bottom of the farmland which was still mostly overgrown with grass, trees and underbrush, but she had carved through it with a wooden path to get to the forest and Marnie’s ranch quicker. While her silo was being built, she needed to buy more hay.

She came out into the forest – it smelled so _good_ in the warmer months – and saw Jas in the grass chasing a chicken out towards the river.

“Are you okay?” she called out, but Jas wasn’t listening. She was running with arms outstretched to try and catch the chicken. Just as she was about to dismount from Rover, Shane came running out from behind the fence after them. He had to put down a bottle of beer on a fence post, which meant it must have been serious.

Esther chased after Shane, Jas, and in front, a puffy white chicken clucking and scrambling away the way only chickens do. Rover blew air from his nose, excited to move, as they came up around the side of the running group. She took a moment to appreciate how funny the scene was and how Shane ran so awkwardly, like he hadn’t done it in years. Once she got far enough ahead she dropped off her horse, catching the chicken in a tackle like a football player might catch a ball. The chicken squawked and scratched for a moment before accepting its fate in her hold.

Jas came over, kneeling down on the grass to check her chicken was okay.

“Thank you!” she said, petting her chicken. Esther smiled, her side scuffed with dirt.

“Here,” she said, passing the bird. Jas held it like a child holds a teddy bear and turned to go back to the ranch. Shane had only just caught up, puffing heavily and trying to catch his breath. Somewhere along the line he’d lost a shoe, which Esther noticed as he stood hunched over with his hands on his knees and one exposed sock.

“Shit,” he huffed, and Jas looked suddenly stern.

“That’s a bad word!” she said, and stormed off with her chicken in her arms. Shane stood up, stretching his back which popped in a few different places.

“I’m so unfit,” he said, and then louder he called out to Jas: “Don’t run off like that again!”

From a distance, walking back to the ranch, Jas made a fart noise with her tongue in a childish defiance. Shane then realised who had come to the rescue.

“Oh, hi,” he said, still breathing heavily and now clutching at his stomach.

“Are you okay?” Esther asked, laughing as she stood up.

“Fine,” he lied, “just need a drink.”

“What happened?”

“She—” he coughed, “—she accidentally let Clucky out and—”

Esther laughed and he stopped.

“What?” he breathed.

“It’s a good name,” she said.

“Clucky?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Jas is very original.”

Shane feigned a smile, rubbing his stubbled chin as he looked away, remembering that it was _him_ who named the chicken Clucky. Jas’s named the chicken’s sister, who had hatched on the same day, ‘Molly.’

“Thanks for catching her,” Shane said.

“Jas or Clucky?”

“Both,” he said, and half a smile escaped him when they made eye contact. That time the smile was real. “She doesn’t have any idea of danger.”

“The worst she can do is fall into the river, and even then it’s hardly moving. She could just step back out a little wet.”

Shane shrugged, feeling sweaty under the pits and between his thighs from the brief run. He took a mental note to try to work out more, knowing that it would never happen.

“She still worries me,” he said. “Marnie wouldn’t be happy with me if anything happened to Jas.”

Esther smiled. “Nothing’s going to happen to her.”

Shane nodded again.

“I’ve got to go,” he lied, “the chickens need feeding. What are you here for, anyway?”

“Need some hay,” she answered, grabbing her horse’s lead and beginning to walk back to the ranch next to him. They walked the distance back, where her horse was tied to the fence while Esther went in to buy hay. His name was Rover, if Shane remembered correctly, and Rover had awfully _knowing_ eyes. As Shane opened the gate into the fenced area he had left to chase his goddaughter, Rover looked at him, swaying his tail a few times and laying one ear back.

“What are you looking at?” Shane asked, swallowing the dry pain in his throat. Nobody but Rover was around to hear him. Rover’s dark eyes watched him for a while, almost as if they were in staring contest. Almost as if the horse was saying ‘ _you know what I’m thinking, Shane, I’m thinking you like her a whole lot and you’re not used to that feeling.’_

_‘I don’t like her.’_

_‘Yes you do.’_

“What are you staring at the horsy for?” Jas asked, Clucky now happily pecking at the ground and wandering around as chickens do. Shane eyed the horse one last time as he put his hand to Jas’s shoulder. Somehow the default hate Shane felt for most people had been broken through. Esther was alright, he supposed. She was nice enough and after all, she just caught the escaped chicken. She even bought him peppers. If anyone else had done that he’d find it obnoxious and maybe, if he had the balls on that particular day, he’d tell them to get out of his life and leave him alone. Somehow Esther didn’t provoke that. At least, not anymore.

“No reason,” Shane lied to his goddaughter, trying to tell himself that he _didn’t_ just have a mental argument with a horse. He shooed her away towards the door and she followed his lead. “It’s just a pretty horsy.”


	3. Chapter 3

Esther walked into the saloon with a bag over her shoulder, and he was so drunk that he didn’t bother to wonder what it was. The saloon seemed overjoyed to have her, since on many nights she didn’t appear. He assumed that was because she got too caught up farming or was too tired by the end of the day to show up. He wouldn’t admit how, after a night of sitting alone, he was disappointed when she never came through that door. She felt like the first live person in a room full of statues.

But she did come, and she walked easily up to the counter and take a large jar of mayonnaise from her bag. Shane watched her through blurred eyes as she passed it over to Gus, who grinned and held it up in the light like he’d just been given a golden ticket.

“Thank you, my girl!” he said, louder than the noise of the saloon. “I will put it in the fridge right away!”

Shane turned and felt his body almost turn with the weight of his head. He knew it was that buzz of alcohol stirring him like liquid but he continued his drink, trying not to look at her. The beer tasted like nothing now other than some dim sense trying to break through the haze. He swore in his head, something between ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’, he wasn’t sure, as the room around him spun. His last thought before waking up on his bedroom floor surrounded by bottles was _‘I need to go home.’_

When he woke up the morning after to water splashed on his face, he could only see Marnie – which was fine, she’d seen him like this too many times to count – but Esther was there too. That concern on her face. Not a hint of frustration, only concern.

That night on the pier had become only the second most embarrassing thing she’d seen him do. This, he thought, vomit rising in his throat and a fresh hangover throbbing in his skull, was by far the worst.

He curled up into a ball, every muscle aching, and stared up at Esther feeling like a soggy bag of meat. She only frowned, and then she was knelt down, helping him off the floor. He could hardly stand and he wanted to refuse her touch, but if he did he’d fall. He stood leant against the wall like a ragdoll, and saw Jas wander in with wide, worried eyes. She was the only other person who had no frustration in her gaze.

What Marnie had said repeated in his mind over and over as he lied in bed. How Jas had run out when he said something wrong – something about suicide. How she cried and how Marnie _glared._

_How could you say such a thing near a child?_

He felt outside of himself. He thought of Esther, happily going about her farming life with all those animals and all those crops, and it was almost aggravating. Why was it so east for her? Why was life so damn easy for everyone but he was in bed feeling like a corpse? He cried silently for a while before he fell back to sleep.

On his bedside table where he had not noticed them yet, a bowl of red peppers had been left, and the note that simply said _‘I’m here for you.’_

* * *

Esther hadn’t heard from or seen Shane for days since, and she told herself to forget about it. She couldn’t help any more than saying she was there to talk and giving him the gifts he deserved. She could only do so much.

It was beginning to drizzle as the sun went down, the rain flickering in the orange sunset as if they burst into flames on their way to the ground. There was something peaceful about her crops sagging in the rain, and something cosy about knowing her animals were all tucked away. And there she stood, rain falling on her shoulders, feeling alone. The crops weren’t good company, and the animals – the only things that made her feel less eerie in this old farm – were all asleep and oblivious to her loneliness. She sighed and walked to the front porch. She was ready to go inside and join her dog in her warm bed but she wasn’t ready for sleep yet. Before she had even laid down she knew she would toss and turn late into the night and then not get any sleep at all.

Before she went inside she grabbed the umbrella by the door and turned back out into the farm. It had been a fairly easy day, she figured, stepping into the squelching ground. Farming was getting easier. Life was easy, she supposed, but it was so empty. There was only so much enjoyment in crops and cows.

The rain became heavier as she walked down the path into the overgrown edge of the farm, then out into the forest. The sunset reflected off every edge, turning the wet trees into flames just as it did the rain. And there, near the cliffs edge, a figure in the grass like a scarecrow fallen over in the wind.

Panic overcame her and she hurried towards the figure, not caring at all for the puddles of rainwater that splashed up her legs. She nearly fell onto him when she saw that it was him, Shane, lying belly-down in the wet grass surrounded by bottles. _Again,_ she almost cried, and stabbed her umbrella into the ground.

She grabbed him by the underarms and heard him moan as she pulled him away. He was soaked to the bone and maybe not even aware she was there, but she thanked god for that single moan to tell her he was alive. Far enough away from the cliff edge, she covered them with the umbrella.

“Shane,” she said, tapping the side of his face with her flattened fingers. It was prickly with stubble and wet from the rain. With the sleeve of her jacket she wiped his face, repeating his name as she stroked his skin. His face was chubby as well as stubbly, but she didn’t have time to think of it as cute. “Shane… _Shane…”_

A low _‘ughhh’_ came out of his corpse-like body as she lifted him up, leaning him on her.

“You need to wake up,” she said. “Come on, you can’t stay out here and–”

“Why don’t I just roll off the cliff?” he asked, and she saw the tears well in his eyes. She wiped them away, almost crying herself. “Because I’m _scared_ ,” he said, his voice cracking as he answered his own question. “Because I can’t do one thing right.”

She hugged him to her, aware that he probably wouldn’t remember this. Fear had clasped her so tightly she thought that maybe he wouldn’t get past tonight at all. Maybe the alcohol was already killing him inside.

“You can’t do that,” she said, clinging to him.

“Why not!?” he gurgled like an argumentative child on the brink of sleep.

“I’d miss you too much, you asshole,” she said, putting her cold hand to his forehead. His eyes were closed and she was almost sure he’d fallen back into unconsciousness.

“You wouldn’t miss me,” he said, and more groggily this time. He was definitely falling asleep.

“Yes I would,” she said, nodding, rocking him, holding him tight as if he might escape and throw himself off the cliff if she loosened her grip even for a moment. “You’re the only _real_ person here.”

He didn’t respond. His mouth hung open and his eyes were closed, his arms beside his body and his open hands to the sky. A pang of fear hit her before she heard his breathing again. He wasn’t dead. _Yet._

With a sudden determination she held him in a hug, speaking as if he could hear. “I’m taking you to hospital.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was two days later that Shane appeared in front of the farmhouse, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his hoodie. Esther was still eating breakfast when the door knocked. She was almost sure it would be Harvey come to tell her that he had killed his liver. But no, it was Shane, barely making eye contact.

“I’m sorry,” he said before anything else. She frowned.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I do,” he argued, his eyes meeting her for the first time. “I, uh, got told about what happened and I—”

She stormed forward, stopping his talking with the hardest hug he had ever been given. She buried her face into his shoulder, wrapped her arms around him, and held on. It was the first time he realised their height difference, which would have been funny, if not for the overwhelming sense of love for her. Maybe not _love_ love, but he definitely loved something about this. He raised his arms around her and held her just as tight.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. His eyelids drooped in an odd relaxation he had never felt, and he thought _god, she only comes up to my chin._

When she released him and stepped back, he didn’t know where to look. He only buried his hands in his pockets again.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

“Anything.”

“Why do you care?” he asked. She heard that slight hint of anger in his voice.

“It’s not only me,” she said, “Marnie and Jas care for you plenty.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one that dragged me to the hospital.”

Esther paused and pondered.

“I don’t know, Shane. I just… feel for you.”

He screwed up his face.

“I don’t want your sympathy,” he said.

“No,” she corrected, “I don’t mean it like that. I mean… I don’t know, I get where you’re coming from. You’re the only one that doesn’t bullshit me.” She smiled and then added: “I don’t think you bullshit anyone.”

Shane’s face loosened and he almost laughed.

“I guess.”

“I don’t know, you make me feel less lonely I guess. Everyone here is so lovely, and you’re… maybe… the opposite of that. But that’s what I like.”

He looked at her and thought for a moment, his eyes sore.

“You get lonely?” he said, shrugging and shaking his head. “But everyone likes you.”

“And I like everyone,” she said, “but sometimes you can stand in a room full of people and feel like the only person there.”

She gulped.

“I probably shouldn’t say this because it will sound stupid, but when you’re in the room, I don’t feel alone. I feel like we’re alone together, or… something like that. I guess it’s a bit of an oxymoron.”

He smirked, eyes mostly lidded, and at that moment Esther was glad he didn’t have any mind reading abilities, because her heart had skipped a beat at thinking how handsome he suddenly looked. It was such a rare gift to ever get a smile from that man.

Shane liked her. The words ‘a good friend’ passed through his mind but they didn’t really fit. She was more than a friend in way he hadn’t worked out yet and thought he might never work out. She was special, like that bus she came to Stardew Valley on had just picked her up from an otherworldly realm. She was different, and he felt lucky to witness that.

Nevertheless, he never said that he felt the same. That when she was in the saloon during his drinking hours that it felt a little more okay. Like he didn’t _have to_ drink too much.

“I’m glad,” he said, and felt immediately stupid. It was nowhere near enough to tell her what he wanted to say. “You know I’m grateful for you making sure I didn’t roll off that cliff.”

Esther smiled. “So you don’t really want to…?”

He thought about it briefly.

“I have my moments, it’s just…”

“I get it,” she interrupted. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

Had anyone ever told him that before? He couldn’t recall.

“I don’t really know how to put it, but I want you to know that even if nobody else cares, I do. I don’t want you falling off cliffs.”

Shane smirked again, and again she was struck by how handsome he was. Again she was grateful he couldn’t read minds.


	5. Chapter 5

“You know that girl cares for you,” Marnie said. Shane nearly jumped out of his skin. It was Saturday so he was sitting on his bed playing videogames, completely unaware that Marnie had been standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

“What girl?” he said. He was hopeful she didn’t say Esther.

“Esther.”

Of course.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, “Did she say something?”

Marnie smiled wide.

“She didn’t say a thing. She just gave you all your favourite things, comforted you in your time of need and took you to hospital when you nearly poisoned yourself.”

He was embarrassed but kept his eyes on the screen, absently pushing buttons on the controller. He suddenly felt like a teenager, sitting in his shorts, socks and a shirt with a stain in the centre between what he hatefully thought were beginning to look like man boobs.

Esther mustn’t have told her about the ‘near the cliff’ part of the story. At least, that’s what he’d been told had happened. He didn’t remember a thing. He was grateful Marnie didn’t know, though, because he would never hear the end of it.

“She doesn’t like me,” Shane said, and took a sip of the sparkling water he’d been substituting beer with.

“Okay, maybe, but do you?”

“Do _I_ like me? No,” he answered.

Marnie walked over and turned off his gaming console with her foot. He slumped, tossing the controller to the side.

“That’s your problem, Shane. You don’t realise when people care about you.”

That frustration in her eyes. It hurt far deeper than anything she said.

“She doesn’t care about me, she’s just a naturally nice person. She feels obligated to help people out.”

Marnie shook her head, getting angry now.

“If it were anyone else passed out in the wilderness, she wouldn’t have gone to half the effort.”

He didn’t believe her, although part of him wanted to.

“What do you want me to do?” he argued, “I already thanked her for helping me.”

Marnie had her hands on her hips.

“You don’t know it yet but you’re getting there, Shane,” she said. “You’re drinking sparkling water now. You haven’t had a beer in a whole week, far as I know. I think she’s your incentive to get your life back together.”

He was silenced by that. Marnie frowned and the frustration was gone.

“I just want you to be happy, Shane, and she wants it too. I can see you care about her because she’s the only person but me and Jas that you actually _talk_ to.”

“I’m being polite,” he said. It was his last small attempt at defending himself. Marnie saw right through it, as she always did.

“You weren’t to begin with. I remember how you told her to go away.”

He felt ashamed of that, and a thick silence filled the room for a while.

“You’re going to the Gridball game this weekend, aren’t you?” she asked. Shane nodded, wondering why the conversation had taken such a sharp turn in the irrelevant.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you invite her?”

He was about to blurt out _but she hates the city_ , but he stopped himself in fear that it would only give Marnie more evidence to show that he had been paying attention to Esther. More than he had for anyone. To those little conversations in the saloon, to those little smiles and waves she gave him every time she came to the ranch.

Marnie looked at him, staring at the ground and thinking. She just needed to push him one little bit more.

“You know I think she uses needing hay just as an excuse to come to the ranch and see you, Shane,” Marnie said, and smirked knowingly.

“I’ll invite her,” he said, his heart secretly racing at the idea.

“Good,” she said. “Don’t ‘accidentally’ forget otherwise I’ll give her the ticket myself.”

* * *

It was Friday night and he was sitting in the saloon with both Gridball tickets stuffed into his hoodie pocket, his hand becoming sweaty around them. He figured that if Esther didn’t come into the saloon tonight, it just wasn’t meant to be. The universe didn’t want it to happen. The planets weren’t aligned. The forest spirits or some crap hadn’t—

But she walked in, fresh produce for the saloon under her arm. Shane’s heart nearly burst, his eyes watching her every movement. He wasn’t sure whether he was excited or terrified that she had appeared, so he settled on both.

She saw him and smiled, and _shit_ , she was so pretty. He pretended not to be watching and sipped at his water. It was an old habit. He was so very used to taking a drink any time a feeling crawled its way to him. But the water wasn’t going to make this easier and he knew that.

“How are you?” she asked, sitting on the stool next to his. He only smiled weirdly, not knowing what to say. She was momentarily puzzled.

“Are you okay? You’re not drinking again are you?”

“No,” he said, and he hadn’t. Not once since that night on the cliff. The urge had certainly been there, though.

“Good,” she said, and her smile came back. He wanted it to stay.

“You know I was gonna ask you something,” he said, feeling the tickets between his fingers inside his pocket. It could have been the light but was she blushing? He could sure feel fire in his own cheeks.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Have you ever been to a Gridball game?” he asked.

She shook her head, her nose scrunching up slightly. His heart jumped because damn, that was cute.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

She laughed light heartedly, looking at him a little confused.

“I’m asking you out to— _I mean—_ I’m asking if you want to come with me to see the Zuzu City Tunnlers play this weekend.”

“What day?” she asked.

“Tomorrow,” he blurted out, and glad nothing else followed. She seemed a little bewildered.

“You know, sure, I’ve never been to a Gridball game.”

He smiled and it was the biggest, most genuine smile she had ever seen on his face. It brought her such joy that she almost hugged him.

“I’m looking forward to it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first slightly nsfw chapter ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Shane stood by the idling bus and watched as the others got in. Esther hadn’t come. He said four o’clock but she wasn’t there.

“You getting in?” Alex called. Shane nearly waved him off.

“Just hang on a second.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “We can’t wait forever!”

Shane felt his heart slowly sinking down to his feet. She stood him up. Of course she did. He couldn’t ask a girl like that out to a sport like Gridball and actually expect that she turn up. He imagined himself getting home, having not enjoyed the game at all, and Esther telling him that she was just so busy it slipped her mind. Of course he’d know that she was very aware of the invitation, but just didn’t want to come. She only said yes out of politeness.

But then Esther came rushing around the corner and Shane was just as excited and terrified as he was when he asked her to come in the first place.

“I’m so sorry!” she said, “One of the chickens got out and I couldn’t just let her go.”

Shane helped her into the bus filled with people impatiently waiting to go.

“But you’re so good at catching chickens,” he laughed, following her up to the back of the bus as it began down the road. Her panic had turned into relief and she allowed herself to laugh with him.

“I think it was just that once I got lucky.”

Holding each pole on his way up as to not lose balance, he followed. He’d never seen the back of her, which was a strange thought to cross his mind, but it did. He’d never been this close to her from this angle. The bus revved into life and as it moved she fell back a little, their bodies colliding slightly.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, giving him a look over her shoulder. He looked bewildered at them even touching and felt incredibly juvenile. Her body against his even for that half a second was enough to send him into a spin. What a _tool._

She slid into the seat second from the back – the back seats were empty – and smiled up at him, waiting for him to sit down at her side. He almost didn’t. He almost took the seat behind her just to be safe from their legs ever touching, but Marnie’s stern glare hit him in the back of his mind and he sat down at her side, their thighs having no choice but to touch on these small seats.

“Wow,” he said, because that’s all that wanted to come out.

“What?”

“The seats are really small when you’re sharing them with someone,” he said, and smirked.

“Are you calling me fat?” she joked, snickering. He almost got flustered and apologised until he saw how she laughed.

“No, not at _all_ ,” he said sarcastically, as if he might actually think she was fat. He didn’t, of course. In fact, he loved the way she filled those high waisted shorts she wore on hot days.

That thought sent him warm in bad places and he cleared his throat, holding onto the pole in front of him to compensate for the rumbling and bumping of the bus.

“Do you often go to Gridball games?” Esther asked. Shane raised an eyebrow to her, almost confused as to why she was interested at all.

“I used to play,” he said, momentarily reminiscing. The depression had sucked the fun out of that, so how he’d settled for watching it. “I haven’t been for a game in a while, but I saw the tickets on sale, so…”

“I’m glad you’re getting out,” she said, quiet enough that only he heard. “I know it’s hard when you feel like you do just to get out of your house.”

The way he looked at her, she noticed his eyes sparkle. Had he ever been told that he was doing _well?_ Had anyone told him that they were proud? He had the face of a puppy with a tilted head trying to hear something better.

“You know that?” he said, amazed. He had never spoken so softly. Her only response was her hand on his arm, her thumb rubbing affectionately on his skin as she stared off into space out the bus window. He was disgusted with himself for a moment, watching her hand on his arm, thumb still moving. His arms, and mostly everything else, were hairy like an ape’s… but she didn’t seem to care. Not at all. She was there for him, and it was the first time in his life he had ever felt that before.

His heart entered his throat and he swallowed it back down. He wanted to put his arm around her, or hold her hand, or kiss her or _something,_ but it was impossible. He was paralysed. Then she rested her head back on his shoulder, and he couldn’t help himself. He moved out of her way just a bit, and for a moment she was worried she’d scared him off and he was going to move to a different seat. Instead he lifted his arm, put it around her shoulders, and felt her close to his body in a way he had craved since that last hug. She said nothing, only smiled at him, then stared out the window again.

He wanted the bus to take the long way this time.

* * *

He’d walked her home after the game and said his goodnights, but not since the arm around her had they touched. He wanted to so badly. The entire way home he thought about putting his arm around her again now that he had the chance, but he thought of her brushing him off and the sheer embarrassment he would feel, so he didn’t move.

He hardly even thought about the game when they were in the stands watching. His focus had turned to her and hadn’t let go. She was all he could think about.

And now he was in his bed, sober, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t remember undressing into his briefs or getting into bed, or much of anything since he said goodbye. It was all a haze and this time it wasn’t alcohol induced. He didn’t even know that was possible.

He wanted to kiss her. It entered his mind on the bus ride there and still lingered like a pleasant kind of headache. He wanted her in his bed, cuddled up to him under the duvet, maybe even in her underwear, maybe even naked. Maybe even holding him, maybe even _holding_ him. _Really_ holding him. Around him.

In pure frustration he rolled onto his side and then onto his stomach, his erection rubbing against his mattress. He would not give himself the luxury of relief. Not tonight. It felt dirty having an actual person to think about while…

It had _never_ seemed so dirty.

He wanted to tell someone. But who was there to talk to at all besides Esther herself? He punched angrily at that feeling in his heart and lied on top of his arms. He wanted to scream now. He wanted her _here_.

* * *

Esther thought about his arm around her on the bus. She never expected it from him and she still wondered if maybe it was her imagination. He was so warm. Like a man built for the sole reason of cuddling. The whole way home she had expected it again, but it never came, much to her dismay.

She wondered if she should have asked when he walked her home if he’d like to stay. Would he? She imagined him in her bed, maybe shirtless, maybe too self-conscious. She’d tuck herself up in his warmth and know that he was okay. He wasn’t going anywhere as long as he was with her, and she wouldn’t have to worry that he was at the edge of a cliff or passed out in the wilderness.

She sighed and rolled herself into a cocoon, her dog passed out and snoring on the floor. She wondered if Shane snored. Probably, since most alcoholics did. But he wasn’t anymore, was he? He was sober. She felt that sense of pride wash over her before she fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the positive feedback so far <3

The Dance of the Moonlight Jellies was, for some reason, the only festival Shane hadn’t been to. For the longest time he thought it was stupid. Why would you go out in the night and watch a bunch of jellyfish?

“Do you want to come see the jellyfish migrate tonight?” Esther had asked, and all of a sudden what had never been interesting was all he wanted to do.

Later in the day, at almost 10 o’clock, she was waiting outside the ranch. When he came out he couldn’t help but smile. Funny how much he did that now. She was wearing a sweater and shorts, which for some reason struck him as an odd combination even if he wore something pretty similar. It was just funny seeing her in something casual, he thought. She spent all day in that farmer’s outfit and she needed to take a break.

“Are you ready?” she asked, and he gladly nodded.

“You know I’ve never been to see the jellyfish?” he said as they walked together through the dark town towards the beach. It was eerily empty when everyone was already there waiting for those lights to appear in the water. It was almost post-apocalyptic, he thought, and it was kind of funny.

He was almost tempted to take her hand and take a walk around town while everybody was gone and just talk to her. But now, for the first time, he was curious as to what the jellyfish actually looked like. Everyone spoke about it like it was some magical, unmissable experience, and he supposed he should see it at least once.

“It happens every year and you’ve never gone?” she asked, amazed.

“Not once,” he said. “It’ll be a first for both of us.”

They came out onto the beach and saw the rest of the town on the pier, some of them sitting, some of them standing, but all of them clustered together like the big family they were.

Shane’s face screwed up.

“You don’t want to go?” Esther asked.

“It’s just… people,” he said. Shane watched them all for a moment before he felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Come on,” Esther whispered, and pulled him to the side. He thought they were going to leave until she started approaching the water. As they reached the water, they could see how it radiated light.

The jellyfish were incredible. They were bright blue like a moving reflection of the night sky in the sea; glowing and magical in their own way. Peacefully floating through the water, on their way to who knows where. Wherever jellyfish feel the need to be.

Standing in the shallow water Shane watched them, not afraid of the stupid things that normally haunted him, like being pushed into the water. He turned to Esther and saw her smile in the blue glow of the jellyfish and wondered if this was all an elaborate prank, or Marnie paying someone to be interested in him just so he’d get out of her hair. But there was a genuineness in Esther’s eyes that he’d never seen from another person, so with that in mind, he _happily_ watched the jellyfish.

Nobody could see them where they were, or at least it seemed that way. Even if they could they were too busy watching the jellies to look back into the darkness and notice the two figures standing in the shallow water together.

“I’m glad you came,” Esther said, eyes on the jellies.

“I’m glad you came to that Gridball game, too. I forgot to thank you for that,” Shane replied. He had his hands in his pockets. It was oddly cold for a summer night.

“You don’t have to thank me for that, it was a lot of fun.”

“Are you just humouring me?” Shane asked, as joking as he was serious. He _had to_ ask. “Is this all actually just a prank? Because I have no idea why you’d want to hang out with me over anyone else. I’ve been such an asshole to you.”

“What reason do I have to lie to you?” she said, turning to face him. “Believe it or not but I actually enjoy your company. I _want_ to be your friend.”

“You don’t want to go off and be with the rest of the town?” he asked, watching all the people on the pier.

“If I wanted to I’d be over there,” she said. In the crowd out on the pier, Jas hung off the side with Vincent, pointing and probably grinning ear to ear. Shane looked back at Esther and yawned into his shoulder. His eyelids felt heavy.

“Thank you for having at least a little bit of faith in me,” he said.

“I have all the faith in the world for you,” Esther said, “and I mean that. You’re such a good person, but I don’t think you see that in yourself.”

He nodded and gulped, moving his gaze back to the crowd.

“I wonder if she found the green jellyfish,” he said, changing the subject.

Esther looked happily over at the kids.

“I hope so. She’s such a nice girl.”

There was a long pause, but far from awkward. Shane would have happily stayed in that silence with her for the rest of the night. But then her voice broke the quiet as he was watching the jellies.

“Hey, Shane?”

He looked up, about to murmur a _‘hm?’_ when she pecked him on the lips. As quickly as she kissed him, she had turned away as if nothing had happened. He felt his lips tingle and his face burn red hot, but said nothing, only looked back to the jellies with wider eyes and a faster pulse.

* * *

 

By midnight everyone was gone. It started with the parents shooing their kids to bed since it was after their bed time. Then it was Evelyn and George, Alex following. Then the rest, one by one; Shane and Esther somewhere in between.

Before she left, Marnie gave Shane a look that had nothing to do with Esther and more to do with the fact that he’d shown up at all. Every year in the past he had a reason why he didn’t want to come, and sometimes it was as simple as that: he didn’t want to come. But this time he did.

Shane and Esther walked towards the forest, and Shane had his hands out of his pockets for a change. It wasn’t something he hadn’t thought about, but rather some feeble effort and holding her hand. With every step they were coming closer to the ranch, and that only gave him less time.

He found himself absently moving his hand to grab hers. He stopped, his heart skipping a beat, but when he went to abort mission their pinkie fingers brushed against one another. Instinctively she looked down to see what had touched her, and he looked up, blushing furiously. Lucky for him it was dark enough for her not to notice, vice versa. He was burning up.

They continued to walk in silence for a while, Shane giving up on it and now wanting to break into a sprint to get home faster. But he felt something against his hand, the same brush of one hand on another, only this time it was her hand asking for her permission. Their pinkies touched and then hooked together affectionately, until slowly he had taken her full hand, their fingers intertwining.

Neither of them said a thing.


	8. Chapter 8

Shane came out of JojaMart at four, lifting his hat up and running his fingers through his hair. It was fall now, the town turning into a palette of oranges and other earthy tones, but the air conditioning had failed and packing shelves got him hot and sweaty. His hair had stuck to his forehead all wet and disgusting.

All day, the idea of Esther kept poking him into remembering how she kissed him, and each time his heart skipped. Twice he dropped the Joja products he was stacking and made a loud racket and a hell of a mess. Morris gave him that glare, and Shane went back to work trying to clean up the cans rolling in every direction. For a moment he forgot about her and her kisses, but it came back and poked him all over again.

He fanned his face lightly with his cap and continued towards the saloon. He would pass it tonight and go home, maybe play some videogames after he checked on his chickens.

Dodging the saloon—even if he so badly wanted to get in there and order a beer—he passed Pierre’s. It’d be open for another hour but the town was slowly falling asleep, and through the glass doors Shane could see Pierre rummaging through the cash register looking at the day’s cash. Next to him, on the shelf, an array of flowers. What was the word for them? Shane felt as uncultured as he did sweaty, but still found himself pausing to look through the door.

_At least I have an hour to consider,_ he thought, but the gravity around the store seemed stronger. Those flowers… would Esther like flowers? She never seemed to grow any. At least, in the few times he’d been to the farm, he’d never seen any. Maybe they just didn’t make as much money. Maybe they were harder to grow? What did he know about farming?

He told himself to stop asking himself questions and just walk in, and for the longest time he couldn’t. Finally he wandered in, and Pierre was almost surprised.

“Don’t see you often, Shane,” he said, oddly pleased.

“Yeah,” Shane said, and in his uniform he had no pockets to nervously tuck his hands into.

“I saw you outside. What were you thinking about, friend?” Pierre asked, ignoring the register for a while to smile at Shane with a friendliness that Shane almost disliked.

Shane couldn’t think of a lie fast enough. He only looked at the bundles of flowers and then back to Pierre, scolding himself. Pierre’s smile widened.

“The bouquets?” he asked.

That’s what they were called. _Bouquets._

“Someone special you’re thinking of giving one to?” Pierre asked, raising an eyebrow to him. Shane recoiled, feeling like a turtle without its shell.

“I just looked at them, what makes you think I want one?”

“Well,” Pierre said, though he knew, “what did you come in for?”

Shane made some kind of noise like an _‘uhh’_ trying to think. What did people come into the general store for? All sorts of reasons, but every one of them had escaped his mind. Pierre chuckled.

“You don’t have to be ashamed.”

Shane disagreed. If he said it out loud— _I really like this girl_ —he would have almost expected Pierre and perhaps the whole town, secretly in waiting, to burst out into hysterical laughter.

_You? Nobody would like you, Shane! Don’t be so stupid!_

He gulped and made awkward eye contact with Pierre.

“Can I have one of the stupid bouquets?” he asked, his hands trying to find his non-existent pockets. Pierre smiled and checked the tag for the price.

“Sure thing, Shane.”

* * *

When he stepped out of the shower, his towel around his waist like a sarong, he caught a look at himself in the mirror. All the self-confidence he had been working up in his head while he washed his hair had drained away in an instant. He stared at his belly and his ‘man boobs’ protruding more than he would have liked; his arm hair, leg hair all the way up to his thighs, the snail trail from his navel to pubic area. He sighed and knew deep down that he was not the only man that looked like this. Still, not one of them seemed to live in Stardew Valley. Shane had seen Alex working out shirtless, the outline of his abs glistening in the sunlight like they would on the front cover of a magazine. Whenever he saw it, Shane wanted to curl in on himself like a self-conscious, bloated armadillo. Surely Esther had seen it, too. He wasn’t going to fool himself into pretending she had never seen a body better than his.

He stepped into his room vigorously drying his hair until it was a damp, scruffy mess, and his eyes caught on the bouquet waiting on his bedside table. He knew that if he waited too long the stupid thing would die and it would just be a shameful waste of money and a show of his cowardice. He imagined himself throwing the dead flowers out and felt a familiar pang of shame. He looked at the stupid flowers as though he was waiting for them to move or say something.

What if Esther was busy tonight, anyway? Maybe she got an early night from all that hard farm work and knocking on her door would only wake her up and make her grumpy? Maybe she had friends over, or maybe even her boyfriend he didn’t know about. Someone as pretty as her must have a boyfriend, right? He was going to embarrass himself in front of Esther’s boyfriend. Maybe it was her husband! Maybe her dog would bark and chase Shane out – maybe he would drop the flowers when he ran away and Esther would find them and think _what an idiot,_ and laugh with her husband and—

_Stop,_ he told himself, and took the flowers in one hand, scratching his stubbly face with the other. He knew as well as anyone that dog she had was the friendliest creature alive, and how would Esther ever hide a relationship in a small town like Stardew Valley? Especially a husband. After all, hadn’t she kissed him the night before?

He bit into his lip at the thought of it and felt his heart ride happily to the idea of it happening again. He wanted it so badly it almost seemed worth the risk of going to her house, waking her up, being chased out by the dog, dropping the flowers— _bouquet—_ and Esther and her secret husband laughing at how pathetic he was. He just wanted to _kiss_ her. Even if he left broken hearted, he could say that he at least tried.

He came out of his bedroom redressed and with the flowers awkwardly positioned at his side just in case anybody saw. Just as he wondered what Jas’s bedtime was again, she strolled out in her pyjamas and saw him there, freshly showered and holding the bouquet.

He froze.

He expected her eyes to light up but she just looked confused, looking him up and down and taking it all in for a moment. He felt as if he’d been caught with something much worse than flowers.

“What are you doing?” she asked casually. Going out to plant some flowers? No. She was young but she wasn’t stupid. You didn’t plant whole flowers already wrapped neatly in pretty pink paper and frilly plastic.

It occurred to him in the seconds of silence between them that Jas had probably never considered her deadbeat godfather ever being good enough for romance. He knew she loved that stuff, she was a regular hopeless romantic, but she probably never even considered Shane being the knight in shining armour. Truth be told, neither had he.

“Can it be a secret?” Shane asked, no excuse seeming good enough for those curious little eyes. _Now_ her face lit up.

“A secret?”

“Yeah, sure, but you can’t tell your aunt Marnie, okay?”

Jas nodded excitedly.

“Okay, Jas.” He gulped. “I’m going over to the farmer girl’s house and giving her these flowers. I’m going to tell her that I like her.”

Jas’s face came to an abrupt disappointment.

“That’s all?” she asked. Shane was shocked to say the least. He expected squealing.

“What?”

“Duh. I know you like Esther!” she said, frustrated, and Shane was too late to cover her mouth so Marnie didn’t hear. “Aunt Marnie and I saw you kissing on the beach at the jelly dance.”

Shane’s face must have gone beet red, it had exploded into flames. Jas was distracted by the image and visibly disgusted. She poked out her tongue. He almost found himself correcting her – _‘we weren’t kissing, she kissed me!’_

“It was gross,” she added just for good measure. He was about to apologize when another thought ripped through his mind, and he felt his face, which was a fiery explosion before, had turned into the white hot burning power of a thousand suns. In other words, he was blushing furiously.

“Did anyone else see?” he asked.

Jas thought.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Aunt Marnie was just wondering if you came.”

Shane was briefly grateful that Jas didn’t know what ‘came’ sometimes meant. _Came to the beach,_ he reminded himself.

“Everyone else was watching the jellies,” she continued, and then frowned for some reason. “I didn’t see the green one.”

Shane nodded, the tightness in his heart feeling like the beginning symptoms of a heart attack. He put a hand on her head as he passed, giving her one last look on his way out. At least if it was a heart attack and it killed him, he’d go out with the flowers already with him. They would save money at his funeral.

“Okay, you go to bed. It’s past your bedtime,” he said quickly although he didn’t really care if she pulled an all-nighter or not, and rushed out the door. He was on such an adrenaline high he thought he might get there and accidentally throw the bouquet at Esther and sprint away in fear. The idea made him giggle nervously, and then harder when he imagined himself falling face first into the pond near her house. His legs were going to jelly.

He stopped a few feet from the door, the night air seeming to freeze him solid, and for lack of a better word, he chickened out entirely. He turned back to the house, determined to put the bouquet back and tell himself they would last another day without dying if he watered them, but when he turned the door handle, the handle didn’t turn.

Confused, he shook it, turning it fruitlessly. He knocked on the door.

“Jas! Let me in!”

Instead of Jas, Marnie’s face appeared in the window.

“You’re going to give her those flowers, Shane,” she said in a voice that, even muffled through the window, he could sense was as stern as it was smug. He glared at her with wide eyes and smacked his fist three times on the door.

“Don’t do this, let me in!”

“Give her the flowers!” she said, and pulled the curtains closed. Shocked and feeling as if he was dreaming, he knocked harder. She never responded.

He stood silently at the door wondering if this was all a trick and she was going to open it, but after several minutes it was clear how serious she was. He swallowed, turned, and started walking towards the farm.

* * *

Strolling past the large pond at the southern end of her farm and once again imagining falling into it, he considered throwing the bouquet in there and running. Again, running away. _No,_ he scolded, _don’t just run away._ He didn’t have much of a choice now, anyway. Even if he did run away she’d find the bouquet floating in the water in the morning and know it was him. He’d look even more pathetic than he did now.

To both his relief and dismay, the lights in her house were still on. She was awake and probably enjoying dinner. Slowly and cautiously, making sure to step on every step onto the porch so he didn’t trip over his jelly-legs, he approached the door. That anxiety attack inducing door.

He took a deep breath and watched his shaky fist knock on the door, hardly noticing the dim pain in his hand from beating at Marnie’s door a few minutes prior. Something inside the house moved like a chair sliding across the wooden floor. Yes, she must have been getting up from dinner.

The door opened and light shone through from the house. Her dog, he guessed a Labrador or Golden Retriever or maybe even both, wagged its tail and sniffed at his legs. It wasn’t going to chase him away, although at this point he kind of wished it would.

Esther’s face lit up into a confused smile.

“What are you doing here so late?” she asked as he stood there, paralysed again, the bouquet in his hands. He stared at her like he’d seen a ghost. “Shane?”

With three weird stutters of a breath he finally spoke.

“You know I’m sorry I was so rude to you when we first met.”

When she only looked at him, her hand still on the door, he found himself with a thousand other things to say just to get her to stay.

“You’re a really good friend to me, and you just kind of handle my depression like it doesn’t even faze you – and I love that,” he said, scaring himself with the word ‘love’ and going over the sentence to make sure he didn’t say it wrong. With relief but equal panic, he kept speaking. His voice slowed from its babble. “You’ve saved my life, and I think _that_ at least deserves flowers, right? I mean I saw them at Pierre’s and I thought of you and—well, I mean, just to thank you—”

She started chuckling, stepping forward and taking the flowers with a genuine smile. Their fingers met for half a second, but he felt it like a smack in the hand and chest.

“You didn’t have to get me flowers,” she said.

“I knew it, you hate flowers—”

“No, I really like flowers,” she interrupted. She was nervous, which he would have been able to see if he weren’t so anxious himself. Instead his brain translated her look as pure confusion like she just wanted him to leave.

“Do you want to come in for ice cream?” she asked, and it broke him out of a shame ridden haze. He was about to say how he had to go when she spoke again. “Do you want to come in? There’s enough for two.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and forced himself to make eye contact.

“I may be locked out of my house,” he said abruptly. Esther was confused.

“What?”

Jeez, he couldn’t tell her what _actually_ happened. He wasn’t even sure he should tell her at all.

“Marnie accidentally locked the door behind me when she went to bed and I can’t get inside.”

“Oh,” Esther said, and she looked convinced. He felt bad for lying, but telling the truth and saying that Marnie locked him out so he had no choice but to give her the flowers seemed a lot stupider. “Well, you can stay here for the night if you’d like. Come in.”

Esther stepped aside and he walked in, still rubbing the back of his neck. Funny, he’d never seen the inside of her house. It was warm, and he thought that even in a row of other living rooms and kitchens he would be able to spot this one as being hers. It was so _her_ that he’d know in an instant.

Without realising he had scanned the room for a couch or even a reclining chair, but the only seats in the room were the two dining chairs at a small round table. She clearly didn’t lounge a whole lot. She probably didn’t have the time.

The door shut and she walked to the kitchen, looking over her shoulder.

“The ice cream offer still stands.”

He considered saying no out of politeness but he’d been so wrapped up in the bouquet thing that he’d forgotten to eat a proper dinner.

“That would be great,” he said, and almost asked where he was going to sleep, but he didn’t have the guts.

“Strawberry or chocolate?”

“Chocolate, please,” he said.

“A man after my own heart,” she replied, and his heart skipped a beat for the hundredth time that day. She clearly remembered that night on the pier when she guzzled down his beer. _A woman after my own heart,_ he’d said easily, because back then she wasn’t even his friend. If he said it now he’d get all red in the cheeks.

“Did you make it yourself?” he asked, just trying to get past his own embarrassment, but then immediately felt stupid. Could you even make your own ice cream?

She smirked back at him and he felt embarrassed, so played it off like a joke.

“I make a lot of things on this farm but ice cream has never been one of them,” she chuckled. “I might try it one day, though.”

“Lucky for you I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” he said, and as casually as he could he sat down at the dining table. “It’s been a while since I had ice cream.”

“Aw, where’s your inner child?” she asked.

The golden coloured dog wagged its tail and trotted over, putting its head on Shane’s lap looking for a pat. He smiled wide and gently grabbed the dogs by its ears, giving him a scratch.

“That’s Ted,” Esther said, smiling over at him. “You’ll make fast friends.”

“What makes you say that?” Shane asked.

“He makes fast friends with everybody,” she said. “It’s hard not to love his floppy face.”

Shane looked back to the dog, still wagging his tail, and gave him a good scratch on each side. It was true, he did have a floppy face, and it was hard not to love.

“You’re a good puppy aren’t you, boy?” Shane asked.

Big dark eyes looked back up at him, nose sniffing.

“So do you often get locked out of your house?” Esther said, smirking to herself as she scooped ice cream into two bowls.

“No, this is the first time,” Shane said truthfully, but followed up with a lie. “I think Marnie thought I was in bed when she locked up.”

“Why were you out?” she asked, not thinking. There was a long, awkward pause as he tried to think of a reason.

“I had to bring flowers to somebody,” he said, immediately wishing he had thought of something a little more laid back and cool.

She came over to the table with a bowl in each hand and he had to give himself a second just to take in how beautiful she was. Even holding ice cream and wearing what looked like pyjamas, he thought she was gorgeous. Would she have dressed up if she knew he was coming?

He considered himself, and thought the gap in attractiveness was tremendous.

“Did they like the flowers?” she asked, putting a bowl in front of him and sitting down.

“I hope so,” he said, smiling. He couldn’t help it.

“I have a feeling they did,” she said, and took a spoonful of ice cream. “I have a question for you, Shane.”

He momentarily panicked.

“What?”

“Did you shower before you came here?” she asked.

“Why? Do I still smell?” he asked, and without thinking lifted up an arm and gave his arm pit a sniff. She burst into laughter, covering her mouth with her wrist. It occurred to him that he’d never properly heard her laugh before. It sounded so honest and unapologetic that he took a mental double take.

“No,” she said, “it’s just that your hair is really scruffy. It’s adorable.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and realised she was right. He usually at least combed through it with his fingers to put it into place, but he’d forgotten completely. It was still scruffy from rubbing it dry with a towel. He laughed, relaxing again.

“I showered,” he said, and thought of himself standing fat in the mirror. He tried to ignore it, because he was smiling and that was such a rare thing without her. “You think it’s adorable?”

“You looked like you just rolled out of bed,” she said, looking at his hair and then back to his eyes. She seemed suddenly nervous, and this time he picked it up. “I don’t know, there’s something cute about it.”

He didn’t know what else to say, and since she mentioned it, it seemed as good a time as any.

“So where am I sleeping tonight?” he asked. “If you want me to go, I can find somewhere else or break a window or something.”

She laughed again.

“Don’t be stupid, you can sleep in my bed. I’ll set up the air mattress on the floor.”

He shook his head, mostly because the thought of being in her bed knowing she wasn’t felt creepy.

“Don’t do that, I’ll sleep on the floor. You don’t even need the mattress,” he said. “I’ve slept on the floor more times than I can count.”

“I _know_ you, Shane. Any time you fell asleep on a floor was because you got too drunk,” she said, and he didn’t get offended in the slightest. It funny anyway, but she could have said anything and laughed like that and he would have been so struck by her laugh that it wouldn’t have mattered. “If you want we can share the bed. It’s big enough.”

He thanked the gods that he was mid-way through swallowing ice cream when she said it. It gave him an extra moment of thinking time before he had to speak.

“You’re not uncomfortable with that?” he asked.

“As long as you aren’t,” she said. “I’m so used to sharing the bed with my dog that I’ll hardly notice.”

“You said I _didn’t_ stink,” he joked, and they both laughed.

* * *

“I’m assuming you didn’t pack pyjamas when you got locked out,” Esther smiled, opening her wardrobe to find her own. Shane was standing, hands in pockets, looking around the room. Her room was even more _her_ than the rest of the house, and he felt almost creepy and invasive standing inside it.

“No, I forgot my bag,” he said, and his eyes lingered on her bed for a second. It was a double, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared that it wasn’t a queen or king size instead.

“Well, if you ever need to use the bathroom and it’s cold, you can wear this.”

She lifted a bright pink dressing gown off its coat hanger and hung it on the hook outside her wardrobe, laughing at her own joke. He couldn’t help but laugh along with her.

“If I wear that I’ll look like a fairy floss stick with legs.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep on the floor?” she asked, chuckling, and threw him a great wad of grey cloth. He unfolded it to see they were large, comfortable pyjama pants. Conventionally unisex, too, instead of looking like fairy floss. “You can wear them, too. I’m assuming you don’t want to sleep in shorts.”

“I’m not gonna expect you to sleep on the floor in your own house,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take the floor?”

“I’m not letting _you_ ,” she said, “if you try and fall asleep on that floor I’ll drag you up onto the bed and tuck you in.”

“Maybe I should let you, then,” he said without thinking, and blushed like his cheeks had exploded again.

“Do you want some tea?” she asked, smirking at what he’d said, looking at the clothes she was folding so she didn’t have to make eye contact.

“No thanks,” he said, cringing at the idea of tea. Esther started towards the door.

“I’ll go get myself one, then. You get changed and hop into bed, if you’d like.”

She shut the door behind her when she left, and he stood there with the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door staring back at him. There he was, in her room, holding a pair of her pants, and he didn’t know what to do.

Looking over his shoulder to check that the door really was closed, he pulled off his shorts and for the first time actually folded them instead of throwing them into a pile on the floor. He hung them up on the end of her bed, not sure where else to put them, and slipped on her pants. They were soft and comfortable, hanging just low enough to sit underneath his heels. On her they must have been ridiculously big, and he found himself smiling at the idea of her in them, pulled up almost to her breasts.

He turned to the bed and felt almost disgusted at the idea of her walking in and seeing him already in bed, but she _did_ say to hop in. He argued with himself for a moment before settling on sitting on it instead, politely over the covers.

She knocked on the door.

“Are you decent?”

“Yeah,” he called back out, and she came inside with a mug in hand and her dog following after.

“Are the pants big enough?”

“They’re fine,” he smiled, and thought about Marnie quite hatefully. Sure, this was something of his dreams. He was about to share a bed with a girl he liked, but he would have given anything for it to be less awkward.

“This is my last offer for me to take the floor,” she said.

“This is my last offer to take it instead,” he said, and she just glared at him with a smile.

“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?”

“I’m sure,” he answered. He sure didn’t want tea.

She put her mug down on the bedside table and slipped into bed, and he wondered if she usually took her clothes off – at least some of them – before she slept. In his own bed he would have taken his pants off and slept in only briefs and a shirt.

He nervously got into bed with her, noticing how she stayed on the absolute edge away from him. He was almost disheartened by that as he settled his head on the pillow, keeping to his side just as much.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” he said.

“Any time, Shane,” she answered, and she reached out for the lamp illuminating the room, Ted circling around his own bed and plonking down on it like a heavy sack of spuds. The light went off.

“Thanks for the flowers,” she added. “Goodnight.”

* * *

It took him a long while to get to sleep, which he remembered when he woke up at one in the morning. In his own bed he would have tossed and turned, maybe gotten up for a drink, but in hers he stayed still and waited. He didn’t want her to think he was uncomfortable. He was, in a way, her body so close to his, but it wasn’t the bed. The bed was great.

He mustered up the half-asleep courage to roll onto his other side, and ended up facing her, one arm tucked under his head. He didn’t know what to do with the other one except for hide it away so that they didn’t touch.

She kissed him last night.

The thought came to him and struck him in the chest. How come they could kiss but not touch when sharing a bed as friends? It seemed stupid, but it was the truth. Annoyed with himself he closed his eyes, sleep creeping up on him easier this time… until she moved as well, slightly closer to him. She made no sound, and he had no idea if she was asleep.

He moved his arm for comfort slightly, and she seemed to respond, her shoulder shifting. He put his hand on her back, deciding that if she questioned it he would pretend he was asleep. She sighed under his hand and he felt how her body shifted. Very carefully he moved his hand up her back and to the space between her neck and shoulder, almost as if he was about to give her a massage.

She made a quiet, sleepy moan and her shoulder moved again.

The space between them was so warm and inviting that he couldn’t help himself. He moved his body slightly forward until she was _almost_ against him, waiting for her to respond again. She did as he ran his hand down her shoulder and arm. She closed the gap between them until they were two spoons fit perfectly together.

He rested his nose on the back of her neck, and then, hoping to still get away with the excuse that he was asleep, his lips on the small space of bare skin. He held them there, relaxed, not a kiss but a want for one. He breathed in her scent and felt giddy through his entire body.

Slowly she moved again and he became so frightened that he didn’t know what to do. When she rolled over to face him he was so scared that he forgot to shut his eyes. In the dim light of the moon shining through the crack in the curtains, she saw him looking lovingly up at her, and cuddled back into his arms without saying a word. Before she went to shut her eyes, she leant up to him, her nose on his neck, and kissed him chastely.

He found his hand running up her spine and to her hair, running through the strands that had escaped her ponytail. Twisting one curl of her hair around his finger, he closed his eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey, Shane?”

Her voice was such a surprise that he nearly jumped out of his skin. Then she started laughing and as quickly as he’d been frightened, he’d gone back to being oddly relaxed.

Outside it was raining, and once, in the saloon perhaps, she had said that when it rains she gets to sleep in because the crops get watered. He didn’t care then, but now, in the later hours of the morning, he thanked the rain for showing up and giving him the extra time with her.

She covered her face with her hands as she laughed, and he remembered that he was wearing her fairy floss pink dressing gown. He stood in the kitchen with his hairy legs poking out the bottom and a mug of coffee in his hand. At some point during the night he got too hot and pulled his pants off, sleeping in his boxer briefs. This morning he meant to just quickly get up for coffee and come back to put them on before she got up to see, but there he stood, crotch region hardly covered by pink fluff.

“I, um,” she chuckled, “I… forgot what I was going to say.”

“I’m sorry, you probably don’t want your eyes to start bleeding first thing in the morn—”

“No, no, that’s okay. It’s a… good look,” she smirked, looking him up and down. He suddenly felt very vulnerable. “But that’s not what I was going to say.”

She wandered over, the bottoms of her pyjama pants under her heels. She looked obscenely cute in clothes too big for her body, and he worried she’d see that in his eyes when he looked her over. Then she was close to him, finding a mug on the kitchen counter for herself. He didn’t move, too scared to, and their shoulders bumped.

“We haven’t said anything about…” she said, but stopped.

Nervously he asked: “About what?”

She was facing the sink as he faced away, silently standing with their shoulders almost touching. He blinked hard trying to get the blur out of his eyes. This seemed so dream like.

“We kissed on the beach…” she said, “…and I think we kissed last night.”

This was definitely a dream. He smirked to himself, staring at the ground and hiding his lips behind his coffee.

“You kissed my neck.”

It came out so cheeky, and she reddened in the face. Her back was as stiff as a soldier’s as she rinsed out her already clean mug just for something to busy her hands, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

“Oh,” she muttered. “I, uh, I’m sorry.”

He wanted to say _‘don’t be’_ but he couldn’t. He just leant over into her space, pressed his nose to her temple, and kissed her cheek. Blushing like mad and not knowing what to do, she continued rinsing. He only hesitated.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and looked away. He was quarter of the way through a yawn when she darted to him, kissing his cheek in return and then in the same second returning to the sink. His attention immediately came back to her, and he stared into her eyes which were watching him cautiously from the side.

“You look really cute in those pyjamas,” he said so quietly it was almost a whisper. She smiled and looked away.

“You look very handsome in my dressing gown.”

He felt a smile creep up on him but not show. He was too taken with her. In one swift and impulsive movement he put down his coffee, took her arm and turned her to him. She dropped her own mug, which clattered in the sink, but she didn’t care. She was enveloped by him as his hands held her face and his lips came _so_ close. She involuntarily released a shocked breath, but Shane took it as discomfort and forced himself away, releasing his hands from her body and standing back. He felt like he was on the verge of a heart attack again.

 _I’m so sorry_ he almost said, and she could see the apology in his eyes, but before he could speak she’d taken the tie of his dressing gown and pulled him back so close that they were touching again, his hands scared and still in the air. She looked up at him, holding him there, and with half lidded eyes he looked down, slowly allowing himself to put his hands back on her body.

“Shane?” she asked. He leant down a little closer.

“What?”

“Try again.”

There was a long moment of silence, their eyes glued to one another’s, before he closed the gap between them.

His lips were impossibly soft and incredibly gentle. Cautious but wanting and affectionate. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him all the permission in the world. He took that chance, and for the first time their tongues met ever so slightly. She giggled against his lips, backing into the counter as one of his hands came downwards to hold her by the hip.

He chuckled deeply and giddily in response, one thumb brushing over her cheek. He almost said something, he didn’t know what, but she claimed his lips again before the words could come out. She tasted like tea, and he didn’t normally _like_ tea, but he liked _everything_ about this.

Her chest heaved just a little, her breasts against his chest. His heart pounded like a war drum on his ribs, so much that he thought she might be able to feel it. She giggled again and turned away from his face, but still held him.

“Your stubble tickles,” she laughed, unknowingly exposing her neck to him. He took the opportunity, his hand on one side of her neck when he kissed the other, lingering down her jaw on his way there. At the contact between his lips and her neck, she whined. Not a _bad_ whine. Not at all.

* * *

“Where did you sleep last night?” Marnie said with that shit-eating grin Shane hated.

“Esther’s,” he answered. There was no hiding it now. Marnie’s grin only widened.

“Sorry I locked you out of the house, Shane,” she said. “An accident on my behalf.”

Shane wiped his face aimlessly in an effort to hide the smile that was creeping up on him. He couldn’t help it. Even if he was pissed off at Marnie, his lips were tingling.

“I see that smile,” Marnie teased, “what did you get up to?”

He scratched at his stubble in an effort to keep his smile hidden.

“Nothing, I just stayed the night. I slept on the floor.”

“I know that’s not true.”

They made an intense moment of eye contact before he looked away.

“It’s nothing,” he argued.

“Did you kiss her?”

“Marnie—” he tried to growl, but the smile on his face didn’t allow the noise.

A long, tense pause.

“Just a kiss,” he mumbled like a rebellious teenager, and that was almost the truth. It didn’t get further than that, and even if it did he wouldn’t admit it to Marnie. The lie in it was that it wasn’t _just_ a kiss, it was her whine in his ear and an accidental mark he left on her neck.


	10. Chapter 10

It was late at night when Jas wandered into Shane’s room dressed in fuzzy purple slippers and a long nightgown. Shane was on his couch, slumped down with the controller in his hands. Without saying a word, Jas climbed up onto his couch and curled up on his lap.

“What’s up, kiddo?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m excited about the fair tomorrow.”

“You know Marnie gets annoyed when you don’t sleep in your own bed.”

She shook her head, “I don’t care.”

“I know.”

She rested her head on his tummy, watching the screen as he played.

“Did you go to Esther’s last night?” she asked. Shane panicked slightly.

“She’s my friend.”

“But I know you like her. Marnie said you kissed.”

Shane didn’t know what to say, but Jas continued to fill the silence.

“Penny asked me the other day if you and Esther were a couple because you guys talked a lot. She said you would make a cute couple.”

Shane felt a blush creep up on him. Other people had noticed?

“Vincent said it was yuck and that couples are gross.”

Shane stroked her hair during the ‘level up’ screen and sighed.

“He’ll grow up one day and meet a girl. It might even be you that he likes when—”

“Ew!” Jas cringed, “Vincent doesn’t like me! And I don’t like him! He’s gross!”

“He’s your best friend, you don’t think he’s gross.” Shane tried to argue, smirking. The whole town knew Vincent and Jas liked each other in that way kids do. Like dogs chasing cars, he thought. Neither of them would know what to do if they caught one. That said, Shane felt just like a dog chasing a car, too. Only this time he thought he might have caught the car, or at least gotten close enough to touch it, and he didn’t know what to do either.

“I think he’s gross when you say it like _that_!” Jas said, “I don’t like him!”

“Okay, Jas, you don’t like him.”

“I don’t!”

_“Okay!”_ Shane said, and hugged her. “I believe you.”

Jas cuddled him reluctantly. She enjoyed his hugs more than anything but she still needed to prove a point. Once she fell asleep on his lap she had forgotten altogether, and by the time Shane fell asleep with her cuddled up on top of him and the TV flashing ‘GAME OVER’, he’d forgotten, too.

* * *

The Stardew Valley fair was one of the only festivals Shane actually liked. He was indifferent about the tourists, but he enjoyed pampering the chickens and showing off their eggs.

He walked into town at nine, Jas holding his hand and skipping over the crusty autumn leaves. Marnie smiled over at Shane as they entered. She had already set up to show off the ranch’s goods, and now it was all about enjoying themselves.

“Is your farmer friend setting up a booth for her products?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Shane answered, “I didn’t ask.”

“Don’t you want to win?” Jas asked, concentrating hard on crushing all the good looking leaves.

“Pierre always wins, honey, it would be good to see someone new win for a chance,” Marnie said. She was not a competitive woman.

The town was filled with people, mostly the familiar faces of the valley, but equal parts tourists who made the journey from the city by bus. Shane always wondered if those people had ever actually _seen_ livestock before.

Esther was setting up her booth by Pierre's, and the moment he saw her his heart jumped. He felt stupid and wanted to look away casually at anything else, but couldn’t. He was so silently overjoyed that she’d shown up.

Esther packed one of her largest pumpkins into the booth, feeling like her spine might snap in half as she lifted it. Surely that would win her the competition. She looked over her produce, putting everything into place and making it look its best. Feeling slightly self-conscious she would come across as finicky and awkward, she turned around to see if anyone was watching her. Coming into the fair, Shane, Jas, and Marnie – Shane holding Jas’s hand. Her heart fluttered. There was something about Shane and Jas that was so unbearably cute. Plus, she was thrilled to know that he’d come at all.

Turning back quickly as to not draw attention to herself and play it cool, she continued to fuss around with the placement of the pumpkin and everything else she’d brought, trying to contain a smile and wondering how she would approach him.

Shane sat on the sidelines for a while, making sure the chickens were alright, but occasionally looking over his shoulder towards the booths. Esther was still there, leaning with her arms crossed with nothing to do. With Jas gone off to play with Vincent and Marnie talking to the tourists, he slipped away, telling himself that if they asked where he was going he’d say he was going to get a drink. But they didn’t.

Esther was half turned to her booth, correcting the placement of a cluster of grapes, when he approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped slightly, almost dropping a jar of mayonnaise but quickly putting it back.

“Sorry,” she blabbered, and fixed it back into place.

“Why are you so worried what it looks like?” Shane asked, smiling, leaning on her booth with her and tucking his hands into his pockets.

Esther sighed and shook her head with amusement.

“I don’t know, I just really want to win, I guess.”

“That pumpkin is huge,” he said, and he really was in awe.

“I know,” she said, amazed herself, “I didn’t see it in the pumpkin patch and it just got oversized.”

They were both only half interested in small talk, but not sure what else to do.

“You look nice today,” Shane said, the words slipping out. She seemed a little surprised by that.

“Thank you,” she said, big eyes so genuinely thankful. Abruptly, the thought of how he wanted to kiss her again punched him in the gut.

“Have you tested your strength yet?” she asked.

“Hm?”

“You know, the hammer test thing to see how strong you are. Have you tried it yet?”

She was smirking childishly and he let out a small laugh.

“No, I don’t really play the games,” he admitted. She looked almost offended.

“First you tell me you’d never seen the jellyfish, now you’ve never played the games?”

“Well, have you?” he asked, playfully augmentative. She opened her mouth to speak, paused, then continued.

“I’m really, really bad at the slingshot one,” she laughed. “Come on, we should go do one.”

“Nah, I—”

“I’ll do it if you do it.”

They stared at each other for a moment before she grabbed his forearm.

“Shane, come on you boring adult.”

Smiling, he allowed her to drag him off to the Smashing Stone.

A big, shirtless man stood next to it with a hammer in his hand. Shane looked him over a little self-consciously.

“You get a star token if you’re strong enough!” the strongman said, passing Esther the hammer. She thanked him and turned to the stone, giving Shane a quick look.

“Don’t laugh at me if I screw this up,” she said.

“I can’t promise that,” he smirked.

She smashed the hammer down onto the stone and watched as the bar rose up just over three quarters of the way.

“Not strong enough!” the strongman said smugly, arms crossed. Damn, his arms were big.

Esther changed her stance a little bit and struck the smashing stone a second time with twice the determination. Shane found himself a tad too turned on at the noise she made when she hit it.

The bar came right up, hitting the top and flashing. Esther grinned at the strongman, who happily gave her a star token for her trouble.

“Do you want a go, Shane?” she asked, holding the hammer out for him. He stood there looking at the bar with his hands in his pockets, feeling like the fat slob he’d always told himself he was.

“Do I get a token for being exceptionally bad?” he asked, and took the hammer reluctantly. Esther stood back, happy that he was giving it a go. He poised himself as a joke, so that just in case he really fucked it up he could play it off as being on purpose.

He struck down on the stone and watched as the bar rose up to just under Esther’s first score.

“Not bad,” Esther said, giving him an overly smug kind of look to try and edge him on.

“Try again,” the strongman said, and Shane went from being mildly confident to horrendously doubtful again. He gave the stone a second smash, and watched the bar hopefully. It rose only a tiny bit further than his last attempt, but he was okay with that.

“Not strong as girlfriend,” the strongman joked, taking the hammer back. Shane felt his face burning, turning away with Esther towards the next game. Neither of them said a word.

“You have an unfair advantage, you farm,” Shane said. Esther laughed.

“It’s fine, most of the games are rigged anyway. I’ll go you an arm wrestle later if you really care to know who’s stronger.”

He smiled at her and rubbed his shoulder. “You’ll break my arm.”

She laughed, and god he could listen to it all day.

“I promise I won’t.”

* * *

As it turned out, Shane wasn’t so bad at the slingshot game. Esther was right, though, she was terrible at it. Just as Shane was terrible at the fishing one, and she was great at it. Eventually they ended up with a combined 556 tokens, and Esther very proudly bought the only 500 token prize at the prize vendor’s stall – a shitty brown fedora.

She came back with it on her head, a smug grin on her face. Shane laughed, sitting on the bench waiting for her while he ate some wedges and sour cream.

“Don’t I look dapper?” she asked, posing for him with her fingers on the brim of the hat.

“Incredible,” he said. Smiling, she took the hat off and placed it on his head, taking the time to brush the front back. The simple touch made him pause as if she’d frozen him solid.

“You can be the dapper one,” she said, and sat next to him, stealing a wedge. He didn’t mind, he’d gotten the bigger size to share them anyway.

She gave him a look over, admiring the stupid hat on his head, and mid-chew he gave her a big cheesy smile and crossed his eyes. The impulsive stupid face made her burst into laughter, covering her mouth and accidentally snorting.

“You snorted!” he said, and she shook her head, still laughing so hard she made no noise. He couldn’t help but find it hilarious, and for the first time in forever, he found himself laughing so hard his gut hurt.

* * *

It was 7 in the evening when the fair was packed back up and the town square went back to normal. Esther didn’t win the competition, but somewhere during the day, maybe during watching Shane fail with a slingshot and swear under his breath, she stopped caring.

The two of them sat in the saloon, which was oddly vibrant tonight. On the table between them, the ugly brown fedora sat next to their drinks.

“Today was fun,” Esther said, crossing her legs and leaning back. He was oddly comfortable now, after spending all day together. He didn’t feel awkward or self-conscious, just happy to be around her. She took a sip of her drink and their eyes met, Shane fiddling with his hands as he gave her a shy smile. She smiled back, putting her glass down and taking a deep breath.

“Do you like scary movies?” Shane asked out of nowhere. Her eyes brightened.

“I love them.”

_No, she’s perfect,_ he thought.

“I’ve got a couple I ordered and haven’t watched yet,” he said. “Do you want to come over and watch them with me?”

Stirring her straw through her drink, she seemed to blush.

“Of course.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VERY NSFW. Like hella nsfw. You've been warned.

“You know,” Shane said as they approached the ranch, “if I just quickly grab the movies and we watch them at your place, I won’t get embarrassed by Jas and Marnie.”

Esther laughed.

“You’re embarrassed?” she asked, but he could see that she understood why. “Go on.”

He gave her a grateful look, only taking a minute to get in and out, returning with a stack of three movies. Esther took them as they walked back towards the farm.

“I haven’t seen these either,” she said, flicking through their covers which were all pretty similar. “I haven’t had much of a chance since I moved here.”

“Are you easily scared?” Shane asked.

“Pfft, no, not at all.”

“Really?” he smirked. He’d remembered that she had that stupid hat on her head and failed to take her seriously.

“I promise, it has to be really good to scare me.”

They walked inside, and Shane almost immediately remembered that she didn’t have a couch.

“You don’t mind sharing the bed again? Or do you want to sit on the floor and watch?” she said, smiling because she already knew the answer.

“You’ve got a TV in your room?” he asked.

“Nope. Help me carry this one in.”

Together they carried the TV into her bedroom, placing it on top of the dressing table and plugging it in in place of a lamp. It looked ridiculously oversized there, but there was something sort of funny about it. Nothing about this situation was normal, and Shane kind of liked how the TV just topped off their weird, kind of crooked and abnormal relationship.

“You can put those pants on again if you want to get comfy,” she said, switching through channels to find the right one.

“Anyone else I know would have just bought a couch,” Shane joked, trying to hide his puffing from the effort and being so damn unfit, but also grabbing the familiar pants which were folded over each other on the end of her bed.

“Don’t lie to me, Shane, I know you like the bed better.”

It was a joke but it came out far more sexual than she anticipated, and both of them burned in the cheeks.

“Get comfortable, I won’t look,” Esther said, still setting up the movie. Shane slipped off his shorts, folded them, and slid on her giant ones. Neither of them had said it yet but he figured he was staying the night, and it was either sleep in his shorts or sleep in comfortable pants, and he knew which one he preferred. He definitely wasn’t stripping to his underwear next to her.

Once she’d set up the first movie and the title screen showed up – repeating music and all – she put on her own pyjamas, gesturing for him to look away before she did. Eventually she crawled onto the bed with him, keeping her distance only out of nervousness.

“You a big scaredy cat yourself?” she asked, leaning on him as a joke to see if he’d take her under his arm. He did, just as jokingly. It felt just as new and strange as it did on the bus.

“Abso _lutely_ ,” he said, “I can’t watch the trailers without crying myself to sleep.”

She laughed, still leaning on him when she took the movie and read the cover while the opening credits began.

“So is it about a family moving into a new house that turns out to be haunted or is it about college kids dying one by one?” she asked. Shane smiled, she really _did_ watch horror movies.

“I don’t know, I think I bought them drunk.”

She let out a huff of laughter and put the case back down on the bedside table, feeling Shane’s hand stoke her upper arm, but stop once he realised he was doing it.

* * *

As it turned out it was one of the ‘college kids get killed off one by one by a crazy murderer’ movies, which was so standard that they could both predict it scene for scene. Neither of them took it seriously, making fun of all the stupid decisions each 2D character made and the small continuity errors as the camera angles changed. Still, the comfort of having each other was worth the bad acting and repeating soundtrack.

Through a scene where one of the characters was creeping around a house by candlelight looking for their friend, Esther remembered where she was. Not that she had really ever forgotten. Shane was so _warm._ Not just in a physical sense, but in every way. He was soft and welcoming and she had never felt so comfortable under somebody else’s arm before.

Her eyes wandered down his body knowing that he couldn’t see. She watched the rise and fall of his belly, the crotch of his pants—she would never admit to thinking about what was underneath—, his one ankle crossed over the other, and his feet under black socks. He was like a giant teddy bear and she found herself incredibly grateful to have him there.

 A scare he didn’t see coming made him jump in surprise. Esther felt it in his entire body and burst into laughter.

“You jumped,” she said, looking up at him with joyful eyes. He was almost embarrassed.

“As if you saw that coming,” he argued, laughing in spite of himself.

“Of course I did, you could tell by the camera angle!”

“Shhh!” he said, putting a hand over her face in a playful effort to shut her up. She grabbed his hand, pulling it away.

“I knew you were a big wimp,” she said, and he audibly gasped, loud and sarcastic, as he shuffled down onto his back at her level.

“How could you be so rude?” he asked, hiding his grin. She moved to her side, propping her head up on an elbow.

“How could you jump at such a terrible scare?”

“How could you be so bad with slingshots?”

She gasped louder – “That’s just a low blow!”

He laughed and she pinned him down by sitting on him. He put his arms over his face in defence, still finding it all so stupidly funny. She caught his hands with her own, their fingers intertwining as they laughed together, Shane still trying to hide his face as if she might attack him.

Once it quietened, the only sound being the movie in the background – they weren’t keeping up with it anymore – their eyes met. They were smiling, content with being alone together like this. She giggled, stopping for a second to take in how large his hands were in comparison to hers.

“You’re the one that chickened out on the arm wrestle,” she said, and he grinned.

“I know, I don’t want you to break my arm,” he chuckled. She leant down, at first just as a joke but then to test if he’d be brave enough.

“You big wimp,” she whispered, and something in him kind of snapped. _Not now,_ he told himself, _don’t chicken out now._

He lifted his head to her lips, giving her a chaste but tempting peck. She smiled, not allowing herself to give into fear, but instead sinking down to return it. To the background noises of an unoriginal character screaming as they were chased down by the mystery killer, Shane let go of her hands, took her in his arms, and tilted his head to kiss her.

She slid down his body slightly, straddling him rather than sitting on him, and he could feel her cheeky smile on his lips. Did she like the power of being on top? He didn’t care, and found himself smiling too, feeling pinned under her but completely and utterly _okay_ with that. She started giggling, and for the first time he didn’t worry that it was because he was doing something wrong or because he was fat or anything else.

“You have really soft lips,” she said as he put a gentle hand on her waist. He leant back, looking at her now, but she couldn’t help herself. With the slowness and softness that made him shiver, her lips brushed against his in one more slow, searing kiss.

He swallowed and breathed like he’d just come up from underwater.

“Shit, I lost my breath,” he laughed in a whisper, and felt awkward for saying so. She put a hand on his forehead and ran it down the hair that hung limply down to his brow. In the silence between them, he let more words slip. “I really like you, Esther. You’re too good to me.”

“You make it sound like I’m nice to you out of charity,” she smiled.

“It might as well be,” he smirked up at her, his eyes sparking in the light of the TV. “I don’t get why else you’d be nice to me. I still think Marnie’s paying you to get me out of her house.”

Laughing, she kissed him again, his reaction too slow and his lips almost not knowing what to do. They tingled, excited by her, as well as other things getting ‘excited.’

“I’ve told you more than once that I like you,” she said, “and I do _really_ , _truly, actually_ like you, Shane. No amount of money could get me this close to someone I didn’t want to be close with.”

He allowed himself the luxury of running his hands up her waist, feeling her curves under her shirt.

“Is that why you’re on top of me?”

Cheeks burning, she considered her answer.

“I think so.”

He rolled her onto her back, and the little squeak of surprise she made was enough to make him grin. Putting his hand to her cheek, he kissed her once more, slow and careful.

He was lying between her legs now, and he wished he couldn’t feel his erection hard against the mattress. At least it wasn’t on _her_.

Staring into his eyes in a way nobody had done before, she brushed a few fingers downwards across his chin, taking in their closeness with a deep, nervous breath. He was relieved to hear it in a way. He remembered hearing Marnie give the advice to ‘never trust a lover that wasn’t nervous with you to begin with.’ He hated the word ‘lover’ but the advice still rung true.

He felt the tips of her fingers on his neck and shivered even in the warmth of her room and her body against his.

“So you _like_ me?” he asked. She almost laughed again.

“I do,” she whispered. He shook his head. No, he didn’t believe it.

“For who I am, though?”

“Shane,” she went to argue, but stopped herself and paused. Her fingers were on his jaw now. “Would you believe me if I told you I almost grabbed your hand on several occasions during the fair?”

He smiled giddily in spite of feeling like a complete goof.

“That’s…”

“I actually do want to be with you,” she said. “It seems so… automatic to want to just hold your hand.”

“Be with me?” he asked, and she realised what she’d said. Still, she didn’t regret it beyond wishing it came out a little smoother.

“I mean, you’re on top of me…” she said, and he shivered again from the contact of her fingers.

He smirked, lopsided and now unapologetically goofy.

“I’m gonna say it now before I chicken out, but… can I kiss you again?”

It struck her as being the most adorable thing she’d ever heard.

“You can kiss me whenever you feel like it,” she said, and he leant forward to take her word. She backed away slightly, blocking his lips with her wandering fingers. “Only on one condition, though.”

 _Here it is_ , he thought, _the catch. The one thing that tells me it really is too good to be true._

He stared at her expectantly and scared.

“I get to kiss you whenever I want, too,” she finally said.

His goofy smile came rushing back.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

He was in the midst of being mesmerized by her lips when he felt her index finger hook over the elastic of his underwear and pants, twisting and grabbing hungrily, moving to his middle just enough to brush against the beginnings of hair.

He was struck by fear as much as he was hunger for her, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to run away or grab her tighter. It hadn’t occurred to him – not in years – what he looked like ‘downstairs,’ or if he should trim. For the longest time he didn’t give it a second thought because nobody else ever got this close to him, but now, as her fingers ran along the elastic of his boxer briefs, he was terrified.

He still had his erection against the mattress so it did not touch her, but he absently wondered if she _wanted_ it. If she would be pleased to find him hard against her thigh.

He leant forward lightly, his stubble tickling her cheek as he went for her neck. He lifted his hips ever so slightly as he came higher on her body, giving her that slight invitation. She breathed hot against his skin, her hand coming out of his pants. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved.

To his immediate surprise, her hand ventured closer to his bulge, brushing against it slowly and cautiously. He felt her knuckles against the underside of his shaft and shivered, his back involuntarily arching for a second.

Just as her fingers came back to the elastic of his underwear, the front door knocked.

He was sure he was dreaming – in more ways than one – but she froze just as he did. He looked at Esther, still scared but now for more than one reason.

“I-I—” she began, but didn’t know what she was saying. Shane moved off of her, sitting on the side of the bed furthest from the door, his cheeks burning again. Esther got up from the bed, glancing at the clock radio on the bedside table displaying a bold _10:32pm_.

Esther opened the door, and Marnie was there, her fist in the air ready to knock the door again. She dropped her hand and smiled sweetly. Esther only rubbed her eyes in an effort to look like she’d just woken up.

“I’m so sorry, Esther, but I don’t know where Shane is and I’m afraid he… is he with you?”

Esther’s feigned tiredness disappeared in an instant, and her mind raced with excuses. She wanted to call out to Shane just to ask what he wanted her to say, but she couldn’t. She stared at Marnie blankly for a moment before faking a smile.

“He came over to watch a movie, he mustn’t have told you,” she said with a slight giggle.

“Oh,” Marnie said, and her eyes strayed past Esther’s to where the TV was. She had only been inside Esther’s farmhouse a few times, but each time she noticed the big TV and the lack of a couch. It always struck her as kind of funny. Now, looking at the empty television cabinet and the great blank space on the wall, it clicked. The TV was in the bedroom.

“I should go then,” Marnie said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

Marnie was off before Esther could have said anything, and Esther stared at her a little too long as she walked away.

Esther closed the creaking door, skulking back to her bedroom where Shane was still seated on the side of her bed, absently watching the movie which was now long forgotten. She glanced at the TV and saw it coming to a conclusion, but couldn’t have cared less.

She kneeled onto the bed and waddled over to Shane on her knees, putting her arms around his shoulders and hugging him from behind. She didn’t know how he’d react, and was relieved to find his fingers intertwining with hers, glad to have her back.

“It was Marnie,” she said, although he already knew. He would have heard her voice.

“I can’t do anything without that woman checking up on me,” he said.

“That’s because people care about you,” Esther said, her chin on his shoulder. He looked over at her, his eyes half-lidded. He was sad looking now. She frowned. They both knew exactly what was happening before the door knocked, and yet they said nothing.

“I’m sorry. Do you want me to go home?” he asked. She looked immediately concerned.

“Of course not.”

He sighed, “I’m not going to be able to look Marnie in the eye tomorrow morning.”

Esther kissed his cheek.

“You don’t have to. Maybe in the afternoon, if you really want to, but not in the morning. You can stay here if you’d like.”

Shane smiled, looking so handsome in his own, ‘roguish’ kind of way. He turned, letting go of her hand on the way, and laid down on his back, dragging her down with him. She giggled, though she hated that word, carefully hooking a leg over his own as he took her face in one hand.

“You’re a really good neck-kisser, too,” she whispered so quietly it took a moment for him to even work out what she’d said. Once he did, he grinned, wide and goofy looking.

“Like this?” he whispered back, moving her hair with one finger and finding her neck again. She shivered excitedly, grabbing onto him how she’d done before, her fingers hooking on the elastic of his underwear. Feeling how her body loosened, he let one hand venture down her body to where her shirt had ridden up ever so slightly, leaving a gap between her pants and the hem of her shirt.

He touched her but his hand flinched away as if he’d been burned. Still, her hip moved against his touch and he knew she wanted it.

His hand wrapped around her hip, fingers stretching over her incredibly soft skin. He could feel the curve in her body where her hip turned into ass, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap around and grab her there. She grinded against him slightly, and even if he wasn’t sure if she’d done it on purpose, he let his hand slip under her underwear just enough to give her warning. He waited to be shooed away, but she only moved her hips suggestively. He felt himself stiffen with the idea that she _liked it,_ and with a kind of recklessness he grabbed her ass cheeks in handfuls, her pants riding down on his hands until her ass was mostly bared to the ceiling.

She made a noise he could have listened to forever, and he grabbed onto her rear a little harder, imaging his handprints on her cheeks or how she could be wet just inches from where he was touching. He was breathless, his heart racing, as he found her lips again.

One hand came back off her rear, sliding up her back with his fingertips in the curve of her spine. She shivered, breaking the kiss and sitting up. He was worried for a moment, worried he’d done something wrong. Instead he felt her gentle hand on his thigh, and then on the bulge now desperate to be freed and taken care of. Stroking up and down over his pants, he almost swore. He felt her thumb up the side of his shaft and wanted her more than he’d wanted anything.

Her fingers ventured up just a little, finding the waist of his pants and tugging down.

“Am I allowed?” she asked in a tiny whisper. He nodded without a second thought, unable to speak. Holding onto her hips, he watched as she pulled his pants slowly down his groin until his erection sprung free. He was immediately embarrassed, as if she didn’t already know now. He half expected her to scream in disgust, but she only wrapped her fingers around him.

He looked up at her face, pulling his eyes away from how she held him, and saw her lips slightly parted, her eyes in a dreamy kind of daze. She lifted herself off him just enough to slide his pants down, Shane kicking them off and flinging them in any direction.

He was only momentarily self-conscious about himself – his hair, his penis, the thickness of his thighs – before she stroked him a little more purposefully and every worry drifted away. She leant down, tilting her head and kissing him lovingly as she played.

He couldn’t help himself. Moving his hands back to her bare ass, he lifted her shirt up, over her head, and flung it away in the general direction of wherever his pants had gone. She was breathtaking all over again. Her curves, her little tummy, the way her breasts filled her bra…

His eyes met hers as his hand crept up her back again, finding the strap and the hooks that kept it on. He sat up, fiddled with it for a moment, unsure of exactly how to open it—but her hand came up behind her, giving his a comforting nudge and undoing the hook herself. The bra fell loose, and all he could do was gently take it from her body, moving the fallen straps off and revealing her naked breasts.

Sitting up with her on his lap, still annoyingly clothed from the waist down, he looked at her breasts in all their glory. He felt stupidly giddy, wanting only to touch them somehow. He scolded himself for being so childish – they were just boobs – but he couldn’t help it. She was intoxicating.

Not knowing what else to do, her held her closer, kissing her neck and then downwards over her collarbone. She lifted herself to him, and he had to… he kissed over the plump curve of her breasts, down the valley between them, until he forced himself back up to her lips.

Between kisses, she whispered.

“Can I take your shirt off?”

Making a brief eye contact in the dark, he almost said no. After a long pause, he accepted it… it was only fair. He nodded.

Her hands came down, lifting his shirt up. He held his arms in the air for a moment to assist her, and she flung it away. Now he was entirely naked, and he’d never felt so scared. She looked at him, smiling. In the dark he couldn’t tell if she was smiling like you smile at a child’s drawing, not knowing what else to do. Like if you had to speak honestly you would have said _‘what is that?’_

But when she looked up at him, face to face, it seemed genuine.

“What?” he said, and wanted to eat his words out of the air before she heard them.

“You’re adorable,” she said. He looked puzzled, but she didn’t elaborate. Instead – and this was just as good – she pushed him back down onto his back lifted herself up just enough to pull her pants and underwear down all at once.

He sighed shakily, not able to do much else. He could feel her nakedness on his thighs and on his erection, and he was bursting at the seams.

She nearly gasped when she heard that growl that came out of him as he rolled her onto her back and jammed his hips between her legs. She could not recall a time she had been more turned on, and his erection on her thigh was torture.

“Shane,” she whispered, and didn’t know why.

His hand travelled affectionately up her side, his hands so big she felt manhandled. She loved it.

“Please,” he whispered, “can I?”

She nodded.

They kissed as he pressed the head of his erection against her, and he made a noise of approval at how wet she was. If he was a more confident man he would have mentioned it in a sexy kind of way, but instead all he could do was rest his forehead against hers, feeling the slow and cautious joining between them.

She was so _warm._ All over, but god, was she warm. She wrapped her arms around him, raising her hips to him and breathing in a soft moan. He didn’t deserve this.

He felt her hand on the back of his neck and then in his hair as he slowly thrusted, rocking her and revelling in how she made that tiny little noise at each thrust. He sped up, partially for her but mostly out of his own desperation. He kissed her neck but eventually it got too much and he had to breathe, his breath hot and heavy on her neck. Her fingers tightened in his hair and he almost bit into her.

She said something in amongst her noises – it could have been his name, or maybe only half of it – but that set him into the next gear.

He moaned loudly into her neck as he rocked her a little harder, her fingers scratching his back in the most pleasurable way. Her leg lifted and the slight angle change was a blessing, pressing deeper into her was almost too much.

He felt her hand between them, her fingers on either side of his cock, rubbing herself slightly. He felt his heart flip, he wasn’t deserving of this. He wasn’t deserving of those noises she was making of how much she was enjoying him.

 _“Fuck,”_ he breathed, and he hunched in a way that scared him. He’d almost tipped over the edge. She whimpered against him, her fingers digging lines into his back and tightening hard in his hair.

“I’m gonna…” she whispered, and he pushed. He pounded into her with more love than he had done anything in his life, and he felt how she came undone underneath him. She tensed for a long moment, throbbing around him, her hand stopping in place on his back, scratching. It stung but he _loved_ it.

He thrust slow and gentle, feeling her quiver underneath him as their bodies moved together, her legs rising up his body and hooking on his hips. He positioned himself slightly higher over her, and even as he held himself back from climax he dared to sink deep between her legs. She moaned, still sensitive, and he could feel it – she was still throbbing.

Rolling her hips into him almost desperately, she still made those tiny little noises of pleasure. He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing against her neck, feeling her aftershocks carry through him.

“Shane,” she whispered, her voice squeaky like on the verge of crying out. He grunted involuntarily, pushing into her lovingly. He was going so slow, keeping himself from going over the edge. “You can… I’m…”

Her hand clasped his ass, her legs tightening around him as if she might cum again. He held her tight when he came himself, speeding up only slightly until the feeling was too much to bear. She rode out her own climax on the feeling of his throbbing inside of her, the soft, wet rocking between them carrying on for a minute longer. Her touch was soft, her fingers loosening in his hair and stroking his neck lovingly.

He let himself slip out of her, that feeling alone almost too much again, releasing a relief-filled groan. She stroked his dripping cock a few more times, feeling his brow furrow where he’d buried his face in her neck. He was so out of breath he took purposeful moments to swallow in between strong puffs of breath.

Finally he rolled onto his back, both of them as out of breath and spent as each other. Shane hardly noticed when she slipped away, only for a minute though, coming back and sliding into place next to him, her breathing deep.

He put an arm around her and cuddled her close, never wanting to let her slip away again, and rested her head in the crook of his neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered, voicing the feeling that lingered in the back of his mind. She smiled and held out whatever she’d gotten.

“Need a tissue?” she asked with a quiet chuckle. He laughed, high as a kite, and pulled a tissue from the box. Once they were done, she yawned, her hand making lazy circles on his chest. She snuggled to his side so well and so warm, her skin so soft. He kissed her temple and then her cheek, sighing a content breath, and he would fall asleep happier than he’d ever felt in what felt like a lifetime.

In front of the bed, quiet and forgotten, the movie’s credits rolled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o


	12. Chapter 12

Shane was still asleep when Esther woke up, only momentarily confused. It wasn’t very often she woke up naked and she _never_ woke up next to another person. Once she opened her eyes and saw him there, sleeping peacefully on his back with his lips slightly parted, she was calmed.

She nestled closer to him, wrapping an arm over his chest. In a dream-like state one of his hands came up to softly hold her arm, his thumb stroking lovingly.

“Are you awake, Shane?” she whispered. There was no response other than his eyelids flicking open just a little. A smile crept up on his face, a lopsided smirk after realising what they’d done and where he was.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice deep, groggy and still half-asleep. She moved her hand to his face, stroking back a bit of hair on his forehead that would only fall back where it was, and then putting her fingers on his jaw and her thumb to his chin.

“I need to shave,” he said just as groggily.

“I like the stubble,” Esther smiled, lightly feeling across the tiny, prickly hairs. “They give you a roguishly handsome look.”

It was mostly a joke but it definitely wasn’t a lie. Shane smiled, wrapping an arm around her and rolling onto his side, cuddling her into him. He’d hardly thought about being naked, even if the thought of being naked in bed with this woman he adored would have shot him right into a self-conscious misery both yesterday and any day before.

She snuggled into him, the duvet warm around their shoulders, and kissed his neck with a tiny peck. He felt her curl her arms up in between them, her hands flat on his chest and her fingers on his collar bone. She could have dug into him and ripped out his heart, and at that moment he didn’t care, because any amount of misery he’d ever gone through was worth it just for this.

* * *

Shane silently looked at himself in the mirror, realising the dull pain in his back. He picked up the little hand held mirror Esther had lying on the counter and held it up, angled towards his back. All across one side of his back, reddened scratch marks from the night before. He smirked and admired them for a minute before putting the mirror down and wrapping a towel around his waist.

He came out of the bathroom with that scruffy damp hair she found so adorable, and did a fast walk through the living room into Esther’s bedroom. From the stove she only gave him a quick, smirking glance.

When he came back out wearing his polo shirt and shorts, he was looking behind him, scanning the room with his eyes.

“Have you seen my jacke—”

He turned to her, standing there in pyjama shorts, faded shirt and _his_ jacket, massive and baggy on her body.

“It was cold,” she said guiltily, one hand on the spatula she was using to scramble up some eggs. Shane felt his heart flip. It was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.

“You can keep it,” he spat out, hearts in his eyes. She giggled, scraping through the eggs.

“No, if I keep it and wear it everyone will know what happened.”

He approached her absolutely giddy and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. She was wearing his jacket and scrambling eggs – she was perfect. He put his lips to her ear, kissing her temple before he spoke.

“And what happened?” he whispered cheekily. He didn’t know where that came from but he didn’t regret how her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed red. She giggled nervously.

“You have a short memory, don’t you?”


	13. Chapter 13

Esther went through her garden, peacefully watering her crops. At first she was thinking about how she needed to work on getting more sprinklers for this area of the farm, but somewhere along the line, without her noticing, she started thinking about Shane.

His big, gentle hands. His soft, perfectly touchable hair. His warm, embracing body that she had so happily lied under two nights prior. While thinking about his hands squeezing her rear and his breath on her neck, her watering can had run dry. Still, she stood there blank-faced not noticing a thing.

In the distance, when she started thinking about his smile and that _smirk_ , one of the cows mooed. Esther woke back up to reality and stared into the face of the moo-er, calmly chewing grass with her head over the fence.

“What are _you_ looking at?” Esther said, embarrassed even in front of no one but the cow. She turned around and went back to the well to refill.

* * *

She was on her way back from the mines, trying to calculate in her head how much money she’d made, when she saw him. Shane, stumbling down towards his house, a bottle of beer in hand, trying with a good amount of effort to not become a feature of somebody’s garden bed. Esther felt disappointment as much as concern build up in her as she went to follow him somewhere in between a walk and a jog. She caught up to him just as he lurched over into the planter in front of Emily and Haley’s house, dropping his bottle which spilled its remaining contents onto the path leading up to their door. Just as his bottle had spilled, so did he, vomiting loudly and groggily into the flowers.

“Shane!” she said, filled with worry. He flinched away from her but was too busy spewing to run. She put her hand on his forehead and moved away his hair, rubbing his back and praying that either Emily and Haley weren’t home, or they wouldn’t hear him. He didn’t need anyone else looking down on him in disgust.

He made a noise between heaves, trying to say something, but he couldn’t. He threw up some more, shaking all over.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she consoled, continuing to rub his back. Once he was done with the last heave, his head fell down. She could hear him sniffle and the loud sound of him trying to swallow.

He fell onto his side on his ass, unintentionally plopping down in the pool of beer his spilt bottle had made. Esther saw his eyes rimmed with tears, drool on his lip and a splash of vomit on his chest.

“What happened?” she asked, holding his hand and trying to get him to stand. As much as she wanted to help him, she was terrified they’d get screamed at if anyone saw them.

“I don’t deserve you,” Shane blubbered, his eyes nearly rolling back into his head. He shut them, cringing. They hurt to open, which she could so clearly see. When he opened his eyes he looked at her, eyes like a sad puppy. “I was such an asshole to you, why do you like me? You don’t like me!”

“That’s not true, Shane,” she said, tugging him up. Reluctantly he helped himself stand, wobbling so much that for a second she was sure he was going to fall again. “I’m going to get you home.”

 _“No,”_ he groaned, eyes closing again. A tear rolled down his cheek. He sniffled and held onto her like an anchor keeping him up. “Marnie hates me, Jas hates me,” he kept on, “ _you_ hate me. Throw me off a cliff!”

“Nobody hates you,” she said, “I promise you, I love—everyone loves you.”

He hadn’t caught what she’d almost said, but he was still hanging on. She had to get him home before he fell over again.

“You can come home with me, then,” she said.

She kicked the empty bottle of beer into the bush beside Emily and Haley’s house, taking a mental note to get up early tomorrow, before they woke up, to find it and throw it out as well as wash away the vomit with her watering can before anyone noticed. Grabbing her bag from her trip to the mines, she led him away from the scene.

Somehow she’d kept Shane on his feet long enough to get to get home, helping him up the stairs and inside.

“You need to take a shower,” she said, and his only response was a low rumble that sounded like _‘drown me.’_

She helped him into the bathroom and sat him down on the stool she had there, mostly to throw clothes on when she got undressed. He sat like a ragdoll, resting his entire body on the wall behind him, his head rolling back.

“Stay awake with me, Shane,” she said, putting her hand under the running water, trying to get it at the right temperature. He made a low murmur in response, not words but just a groan. Once the water was good enough she stood him back up, his entire weight on _her_ now. She held him up, moving the little white stool into the shower so he wouldn’t have to stand.

“Now, you have to get undressed,” she said. His closed eyes tightened and his nose crinkled.

“I’m _fat,_ you don’t want to see me,” he muttered.

“I’ve seen you naked,” she said, surprised that that fact was actually true. He mumbled again, defeated, as she put her hands on his shoulders and rolled his hoodie off his body, careful to put it down so the splash of vomit on it didn’t touch anything. Next she put her hands on the bottom of his shirt and lifted it up.

“Arms,” she said, and he lifted them limply into the air only as much as what was necessary.

“You hate me, don’t you?” he said. “Everyone hates me.”

He got his shirt stuck over his head, retracting and sucking in his belly in shame.

“Don’t look at me,” he added as she pulled it off from around his head and raised arms. He stood there shirtless, his hair a mess, his stubble longer, and his eyes drooping miserably. She wanted to cry for him.

“I swear on every grave out there, I don’t hate you. I never hated you.”

Shane’s sad eyes opened enough to look at her. Somewhere in there, in some sober part of him that still remained, he was begging to be loved.

“You think I’m fat,” he said. She shook her head.

“I love your chubby belly,” she said, and that was entirely true. He swallowed, eyes closing again in another defeat. “Now come on, we have to take off your shorts.”

“Mmm,” he mumbled, and his fingers tried for the button above his fly. Once she was sure it was going to take hours for him to undo it, she helped. Unzipping his fly, she worked his shorts down, which he kicked off. When she went for his boxer briefs, wet on one ass cheek from sitting in the beer, she stopped her.

“Can I leave them on?” he asked self-consciously. She nodded and guided him into the shower. He sat down on the stool, leaned forward and rested his forehead on the cold, tiled wall. She only watched him for a moment, water splashing over his head, down his hair and face and streaming down his eyes, nose and chin. His lips were slightly parted, breathing deeply and sleepily.

She put a hand on his naked back as she reached over for the soap.

“Why do you like me?” he asked quietly. Esther sighed.

“You’re funny… you’re affectionate…” she listed, rubbing the soap over his back. Somewhere in her list he looked up at her through the wet curtain of his hair. “You’re handsome… you’re… _warm…_ you give incredible hugs…”

He scoffed.

“I’m not handsome.”

She looked him in the eye, her hand circling between his shoulder blades.

“Shane, you have this smirk that gives me butterflies. I wouldn’t tell you that if it wasn’t true.”

He moved his head back into position, forehead still on the tiles, looking away. He couldn’t face her.

“I was such an asshole to you,” he said. “You used to come up to me just to say hi and I’d tell you to fuck off.”

“I know,” she said. “But I knew that wasn’t really you.”

“It was,” he said.

“No it wasn’t,” she sighed, “it was the you that didn’t want to feel any more pain.”

Shane’s eyes closed and she could have sworn that under that water he was silently crying again.

“I’m sorry I was an asshole,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, “you’ve well and truly made up for it.”


	14. Chapter 14

Shane woke hungover, his head throbbing and his eyes stinging. It was such a familiar feeling, but it never ceased to bring a wave of shame over him. He squeezed his eyes shut in two hard blinks before opening them again, trying to make sense of the blur around him. He was in Esther’s room, he realised, and he smelled like her soap.

He looked to the clock radio on the table. It was only just six in the morning. Before he had time to be amazed he was awake this early, the front door closed. He jumped in surprise then slouched back down under the duvet, realising he was wearing old flannel pyjamas he hadn’t worn in years. Where had she gotten them? He imagined her going to Marnie’s and asking for pyjamas to borrow. They must have been buried deep.

Slowly the bedroom door opened and Esther peeked in. Her face was still a blur but who else could it be? Nobody else was that gentle and quiet.

“Are you awake, Shane?” she whispered. Once his vision cleared enough he could see that she was fully dressed. And at _six?_

“I’m awake,” he said groggily. She sighed and, to his surprise, sat down onto the bed beside him. Cautiously he rested his head on her thigh, and she responded only by running her fingers through his hair – a great, soft mess. Even in a short time, he’d forgotten how comfortable she was.

“I was out. I had to throw a beer bottle out and hose down some vomit,” she said, almost as if it were the punchline to a bad joke. “Do you remember what happened last night?” she asked.

He felt a pang of guilt hit him hard in the chest and throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said against her lap.

“So you remember?” she asked, looking up at him with her head on the pillow beside his.

“Not… all of it,” he said shamefully. “I remember vomiting… somewhere… and the shower.” Panic spread across his eyes. “Did you see me naked? Like in the light?”

Esther laughed softly.

“You didn’t let me take your boxers off.”

He swallowed. “But you saw my… you know, everything else?”

“Shane, I was more worried that you didn’t poison yourself.”

He sighed, and she looked down at his sorrowful face. She could have kissed him then. She felt nothing but affection for him. Wholly, entirely, one hundred percent affection. She could see only his profile and his hand on her leg between his cheek and her. She took only a moment to appreciate how good looking he was, even now, hungover and looking like he was only a few steps away from being a hobo. She was immediately distracted when his eye rolled up to look at her, his head tilting slightly in her direction. If he allowed himself, he would have gone right back to sleep. The hangover was pulling him into it, that black hole that was so easy to give in to. He was so done with black holes. He felt like he was already in it, looking up at the light above. Her face and her hand in his hair, tempting him out from the bottom of the well.

He wanted to tell her something and his lips moved slightly in an effort to say it. However, he had no idea what he wanted to say. That he loved her, maybe? That he adored her more than anything on the planet and he wanted to scoop her up and hold her tight for the rest of time? But more than that, _thank you._ Just thank you.

She looked down on him, stroking his fringe away from his forehead.

“I’m going to go out and get some farm work done. Do you want a drink before I go? Some breakfast?”

He was oddly disappointed that she’d taken away his chance to speak, but still, he could have. He just didn’t know how.

“The idea of food makes me feel worse,” he said with half a smirk on his face. He didn’t want to vomit again.

“I’ll get you a glass of water to sip and you can get a little more rest,” she said, slipping out from under him. He moved his head from her lap back to her pillow, missing her touch the moment it was gone. She returned with a tall glass of water, kissed him on the forehead, and left.

* * *

It was three in the afternoon according to the clock when Shane woke again. He forced himself to sit up, feeling like death itself. He grabbed the glass of water she had left, not wanting to leave it full, and briefly considered pouring some of it out into the pot plant she had nearby so he didn’t have to drink it. Instead, he forced it down, the lingering taste of vomit still sour in his throat.

She would still be outside, he thought. She’d probably checked on him multiple times while he slept off the hangover, just peeking in to see him still a lump in her bed. He hated the idea of what he looked like as a useless mound, and forced down more water. Drinking away bad thoughts was such a habit it applied to water just as well.

When he got out of bed, feeling as if he was limping for some reason, he stared absently at her calendar. Every single birthday in fall was written down. _Penny on the second, Elliot on the fifth…_

He wandered over to the calendar, noticing all the little notes on some of the days. _Get Clint some copper. Deliver shorts to Lewis._ He listened for a moment to hear if she was in the house. Then he sighed, unpinning the calendar from the wall and flipping back into spring… just to check. His heart jumped just a little when he saw his own name in all capital letters scrawled across the 20 th. _SHANE’S BIRTHDAY, REMEMBER PEPPER POPPERS._

He would have smiled at the fond memory – and it was kind of fond. He remembered that birthday and how she gave him those freshly made pepper poppers and how good they were – but he also remembered how he’d brushed her off. He couldn’t quite recall exactly what he’d said, only how he’d implied that she didn’t _really_ care about his birthday, and it was stupid that she’d given him a gift. And still, like the asshole he was, he’d taken those pepper poppers and eaten them for dinner that night, alone in his room and playing videogames.

He cringed at himself, feeling sick in the stomach for more reasons than one now. The next special date on the calendar was marked with a little flower doodled in pen, labelled ‘flower dance’. Under it, a tiny little question mark. He stared at it with a furrowed brow. What did that mean? She didn’t know who to ask to dance? She didn’t know if she wanted to go?

Regardless, he remembered that flower dance in particular better than any of the others. The time she sat down next to him on that bench and they watched the dance together while he drank. Their relationship was so different then, he thought. But that was the changing point, when the tracks on the train switched and he started letting her in.

He sighed and sipped more water, switching the calendar back onto fall… but then growing curious and turning it one more page over to check winter.

On the 1st was _‘Krobus’s Birthday.’_   Who was Krobus? He figured it was some exotic name from a friend she might have had before moving here. He absently looked through all the other dates, the birthdays of people he’d sort of half forgotten about. Then the little tree scribbled just like the flower for the flower dance, this time labelled ‘FOTWS’, took his attention right to the 25th. Oh, right. Feast of the Winter Star. What was he going to get her? Surely he had to get her something. Then the idea struck him.

* * *

Esther came in at around five. Shane was already up, pouring more water into his glass. He turned around to see her just as she got to him, wrapping her arms around him in a warm embrace.

“Marnie said she wants you home to look out for you,” she said. Shane frowned. All he wanted to do was to hold her, not go home. Still, he wondered if going home would be better so Esther didn’t have to look at him.

“She doesn’t own me,” he said, partly a joke. Some part of him in the back of his head thought of pulling her shirt off, but the thought passed.

“Shane, you should at least drop in. She’s worried about you.”

He rested his head on hers. He was so fucking sick of being worried about. He was sick of giving people a reason to be.

“Fine, I’ll go home,” he said. She took a deep breath, squeezing him tighter. He would think about how she stroked his back when he fell asleep that night, regretfully, in his own bed.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW again ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

_Winter’s here,_ Shane thought, walking home in the snow. The snow had come hard and fast while he was at work, and the crunching of his footsteps was a lot louder on the way home than it was on the way there.

He tucked his hands into the pockets of his JojaMart jacket, not nearly as warm as his favourite hoodie, but Morris didn’t care. He’d be happy to work his employees so far into the ground that they died of exhaustion, so a too-thin uniform was the least of his concern.

Shane got to the town square when he saw her – Esther – the cutest damn thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. She was wrapped so thick with scarves that she looked like a human cocoon. He smiled at the ground, not wanting to look, but his eyes betrayed him. From the side, pretending to watch his feet in the snow, he observed her like a beautiful bird he was careful not to scare away.

She was talking to Evelyn in that soft way she did, putting one gloved hand on the old woman’s shoulder when she said goodbye. She gestured towards Evelyn’s house, probably offering to walk her home, but all Shane could think about was her adorably striped socks, her thick black gloves, and the scarf around her neck.

When Evelyn started walking towards her house, Esther’s eyes raised to Shane, realising he was standing there as awkwardly as ever. She wandered over to him, giving a quick look around. He looked confused, like a deer in the headlights. She slipped her scarf off from around her neck and flung it around his, catching it around the other side and pulling him close to her. He stumbled forward, bumping into her with wide, unsure eyes – until she kissed him. He lips were warm and welcoming, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her. He’d forgotten about the town around him and any potential onlookers, and instead just tilted his head, exhaling the jump his heart had done.

Once he broke the kiss, standing up straight and looking down on her smiling face, he stopped dead. Their faces were bright red with the cold, a few snowflakes caught in his almost-beard and the hanging strands of his hair.

“Why?” he asked, breaking out into a quiet laughter. His breath was a plume of steam in the freezing cold air. To her, he’d never looked so innocent.

“I couldn’t barge into your work and kiss you, so I thought I’d do the next best thing and find you out here,” she said, looking sort of embarrassed as much as she was amused at herself.

His brow furrowed as he came a little closer with no aid of her pulling on the scarf around his neck.

“Does that imply you’ve been thinking about kissing me all day?” he asked with squinted eyes and an infectious smirk. She opened her mouth to respond, but a small voice broke them apart.

“Hi, Shane!” Jas shouted, “Hi, Esther!”

They split apart in an instant, Esther’s scarf falling into the snow. If their faces weren’t already red from the cold, they would have been from blushing.

“Hi Jas,” Shane said in a wavering voice. “Why are you out here?”

Vincent was nearby, he realised, rolling snow into balls in his hand.

“Just playing,” she said, and skipped away with Vincent.

Shane looked back at Esther, gulping down his racing heart.

“Meet me in the forest around eight,” Esther said, picking her scarf up and dusting off the snow. He nodded thoughtlessly, and she smiled, turned, and walked away. All Shane could think about was how much he wanted to pull her back by her scarf and twirl her back into his arms like a scene out of a stupid chick-flick.

* * *

He stood in the snow at ‘around eight’, this time covered head to toe in winter clothing instead of shitty JojaMart uniform. His thickly gloved hands were tucked into the pockets of his coat, and a thick (and very old) grey scarf wrapped around his neck. To top it all off, a black beanie he’d pulled out from somewhere in his underwear drawer.

When he saw Esther walking his way through the snowflakes, her plumes of breath trailing behind her, he immediately noticed something dangling from her hand. She smiled when she saw him and held up whatever she was holding. Two pairs of ice skates.

“Oh, jeez,” he said, “you’re not going to make me ice skate are you?”

She laughed. “Why not?”

He wiped the smile on his face and looked around as if some excuse would materialize out of nowhere. Before he could think of something to say she pushed the skates at him so that he _had to_ take them.

“Don’t be a party pooper. I asked Marnie what your shoe size was and ordered them.”

His brow furrowed in almost confusion.

“How long ago did you do _that?_ ”

“Well… before it started snowing,” she said shyly. “Look, I’ve been looking forward to doing this for ages, don’t bum me out… and shipping takes ages when you live here!”

He shook his head, looking at the ice skates. They were brand new, and she was already putting hers on.

“You’re guilting me into this,” he said, not serious at all. She rolled her eyes.

“Well, if you _really_ don’t want to ice skate with me I’ll do it by myself. _All alone. With nobody else._ ”

He chuckled, sitting down and untying his shoelaces. The pure, childlike excitement on her face was incredibly sweet.

“Have you ever ice skated before?” she asked.

“The last time I did I think I was about nineteen,” he said, smirking. She seemed to pause at that.

“You would have been a cute nineteen-year-old,” she said, then started laughing to herself. “Are there photos somewhere that I haven’t seen?”

“Sure are, but you’re never seeing them,” Shane grinned, standing up while balancing himself on a tree. “Just imagine a long-haired fat kid.”

Esther was half way through standing up when he said that, and she burst into laughter so hard she nearly fell face first onto the ice. Shane laughed at her, probably harder than he’d laughed in years, and shuffled through the snow to grab her.

“Are you okay?” he said through a fit of the giggles. She was just as bad, her reddened face looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” she said. He was sure that if not for the balancing act they were both performing, she would have pushed him.

“So have you skated before?” he asked.

“It didn’t snow where I grew up,” she said, “I’ve never had this winter wonderland thing.”

He waddled towards the ice of the frozen over lake, her hand in his, remembering how bad his balance was all at once. Through the thickness of their gloves he could hardly even feel the pressure of her hand holding onto him, but still, his heart did that little flip he never got used to.

“I just want you to know that if we die this was your idea,” he said, slowly sliding across the ice. Nervously she followed, barely staying upright. Watching her wobble was as hilarious as it was nerve-wracking, and still he couldn’t help the laughter. He held out his free hand, grabbing onto hers until they were two awkward looking statues gently sliding on ice.

“Are you okay?” he said. They were both giggling like idiots. “Your eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.”

She laughed and clung to him.

“I should have practiced,” she said.

“It’s fine. I know… well I know how to go forward.”

“Do you know how to stop?”

“I think you just kind of—”

At the turn of his foot he lost his balance immediately, skipping awkwardly in place to try and get his footing but landing hard on his ass and then his back, accidentally pulling Esther down with him.

She fell on top of him and heard the loud _‘oof!’_ sound he made when he hit the ice, and felt how they started sliding away from land together in a great, awkward lump.

“Oh god, are you okay!?” she cried, still laughing. He opened his eyes, face to the night sky, couldn’t help but find the funny side. Together, a cuddled, sliding mound, they laughed _hysterically._

“What are you laughing at?” he said accusingly, catching his breath. She could hardly respond, her laugh had turned into that silent belly-laugh you can’t control.

“I’ve never seen you move so fast,” she wheezed.

* * *

It took a while to get their footing but eventually it was the most beautiful, silent slow dance – and only occasionally interrupted by one of them losing their footing or balance and nearly toppling again. They’d done laps around the lake, trying to keep each other balanced as they held hands and skated like newborn foals learn to walk. Wobbly at first, then just silly looking. She’d caught the hang of it pretty fast, even when Shane was still staring at his feet trying to work out how this was easy for _anyone._

Esther had never experienced silence like this before. When she lived in the city, ‘silence’ was a dark room and listening to the cars go by on the streets below her, sometimes even the distant sound of a party going on. This was… nothing. It was pure, whole silence. Like everyone in the town had left, like everything that ever made a noise had gone to sleep, and all that was left in the entire world was her and Shane.

She wrapped her arms around him, putting her ear to his chest until silence was the sound of his heartbeat, which grew faster over the span of a few seconds.

“What are you thinking about?” she whispered absently. She wasn’t suggesting a thing, she just wanted to know. His heart grew faster again. She heard him swallow and felt his breath, waiting a long while for his response.

“You.”

She looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest, and pushed him backward so they started to move again. She spun around him awkwardly, clinging onto his hands tight.

“What in particular?” she asked teasingly. She didn’t expect a real answer but she noticed in his eyes – he was trying to think of one. He wobbled slightly, pulling her close.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I just don’t know why you like me.”

She breathed some kind of laughter against his chest, thick with winter clothing.

“Can I say something and you not think I’m weird?”

“If anything I’ll be relieved that you said something stupid in front of _me_ for a change,” he said quietly.

“Brace yourself,” she said, resting her head on his chest again for comfort. That, and looking him in the eyes was too hard.

“Consider me braced,” he said, rubbing her back.

“Every time I see you, I feel like we’re meeting again for the first time. I want to say hello to you and ask you to tell me about yourself or something…” she said, equally embarrassed and amused with herself. “I know that we’ve kissed and I know that we’ve…”

She heard his heartbeat speed up immeasurably, even when she wasn’t listening out for it.

“Gotten down to business?” he asked, and she could hear the nerves in his voice.

“That’s one way of putting it,” she snickered.

“Why? Do you regret it?” he asked, his hand stopping shyly midway over her back.

“No! Not at all,” she said. “It’s… crazy.”

“Crazy?”

“I feel like it never happened,” she said, “like it was a dream or something. It wasn’t real.”

“Maybe you blocked it out of your memory because you saw me naked,” he said, then immediately cringed at himself.

“Not really,” she said, “it was dark and there were sheets…”

“It feels unreal to me mostly because I can’t believe it happened,” he said.

“Me, neither,” she added. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. She pulled her ear away from his racing heart and looked at him in the eyes.

“I probably should have gone through things like the pill and cleanliness and…” she scolded herself and he almost laughed at how she cringed. “Why did I ruin a moment like that?”

“Do you want to go home?” he asked. Her eyes widened with fear.

“Oh, shit, are you telling me to go away because I will—”

He stopped her and pulled her close again.

“No, I mean… do you want…?”

His eyes finished the question, and hers answered it.

* * *

She wished it didn’t feel so clinical and awkward how they’d walked into her house, as if both of them were pretending to not know what was going on, but that all went away like a sandcastle in the tide when she entered her room and his arms slid under her arms and around her middle from behind.

“Tell me no if you want me to go home,” he whispered with his chin on her shoulder. Her heart had been racing so hard it was starting to hurt. She shook her head.

Without another word he very slowly wrapped his arms around her, moving his hands to the front of her hip bones and kissing her neck. As unreal as the past experience had been, this felt unreal even as it was happening.

Esther unwound beneath his hands and to the gentle kisses and nuzzles in the crook of her neck. He didn’t deserve this, and he knew it, even as he slipped his hand beneath her belt and touched at her fly. Even as she sighed with anticipation, pressing her butt against him. The feeling of his already half-mast erection between her cheeks gave him tingles all over, and he pulled her fly down with some kind of determination. The buckle of her belt and the button of her jeans came next.

He didn’t plan on sliding a hand down her pants once he’d unbuttoned her, but somehow it happened. He cupped her entirely underneath one large hand, his middle finger feeling the indentation of her slit through her underwear. She pushed back on him harder, his erection now hard on her ass. He only grabbed her more sternly, rubbing her up and down.

She had never experienced a gentleness quite like Shane’s kisses. Nothing in the world was ever as quietly affectionate. Thought went into the placement of every kiss, waves of love and adoration. At the feeling of his stubble on the back of her neck, she shivered.

“You have really… _really_ cute freckles on your shoulders,” he said. She didn’t know what to say, but almost said something about the stiffness between her cheeks or the way his hand cupped her. It was trying to be sexy, but nothing came out. She was simply smitten with him beyond any thought at all.

His hand drew away from her and she was certain he was done with it until his hand came back down, this time underneath her underwear and directly on her instead. His middle finger brushed along the outside of her slit for a second time, but her nerves were hypersensitive to his touch. She whined slightly as he parted her and explored the tight little nub she wanted him to touch so badly.

“Whoa…” he breathed, “you really worked yourself up.”

She could practically feel his smirk in her neck, and found herself smirking, too.

She turned around and drew him into a kiss—Shane only very briefly catching a glimpse of her patterned underwear— before pulling him backwards until she felt her calves hit the side of her bed. He came down on top of her, one knee on the very edge of the bed and his shoulders wide and shielding above her. She felt safe there, as if he were some kind of giant.

Teasingly she lifted a knee to his crotch, very gently touching his erection. He flinched away and looked her in the eye in an almost predatory way. His hand came down to the waist of her pants and tugged, easily sliding them down her hips. He saw the pattern of her underwear – stripes in different shades of blue. He was sure that when she bought them she wasn’t trying to look sexy, but they were the sexiest things he’d ever seen. That’s why they had to come off.

When she was naked before him, sprawled across her bed with her legs open for him, he almost didn’t believe it. Still, this was real. This was frighteningly real. Although they’d done this before – kind of – he’d never really seen her naked. Not the beautiful mounds of her breasts or the soft curves of her body and stomach… he wanted to just watch her.

“You’re horrendously overdressed for the occasion,” Esther said, one arm shyly over her midriff underneath her breasts. Her boobs pooled up over her arm and all he wanted to do in that moment was put his face in them.

He gulped, taking his shirt off the way only men did: swiftly from the back of the neck over their heads, folded over one arm and then tossed away sort of sideways. Esther wasn’t sure why men did it that way but she smiled at his half nakedness, and the way the elastic of his boxer shorts poked up over the waist of his pants and that dark fuzz trailing down from his belly button.

She reached out with grabby-hands, and all he could do was look down as she undid his fly eagerly. He still couldn’t understand why she was so keen on seeing him naked, he didn’t even want to see _himself_ naked. His pants came loose and pooled at his feet, then, as he came down on top of her again, his boxers followed with a gentle shove from Esther’s hand.

* * *

Even in the cold air, sweat was beading on his forehead as she rode him. His eyes came hazily open, watching her breasts bounce – her _whole body_ bounce – with each thrust. He let out a moan of pleasure and disbelief, his head rolling back and his fingernails digging into her perfectly squishable hips, then her ass. She looked down at him with the darkest bedroom eyes he’d ever seen, like she might just rip his heart out and eat it when she was done with him. He was so okay with it that it only turned him on further.

She rode him out, holding onto the bedhead as she throbbed and squeezed around him at her climax. She was watching his eyes when his mouth opened to the air, letting out one more guttural groan as he came. Her eyes closed as she slipped off of him, giving him a few more rolls of her hips, making some kind of high-pitched sound of pleasure as she rubbed on him, too sensitive to handle. Spent, she fell sideways off of him and onto the warm plains of her bed.

He rolled his head to the side to look at her, and with her legs bent and her knees to the ceiling, she laid covering her face with both arms, breathing deep from her exposed mouth. A wide grin stretched across her lips, and she jiggled slightly as she began to laugh, sliding her arms off her face and looking at him with brightly sparkling eyes. The dark _‘I’m going to eat you alive’_ eyes were gone. He grinned, too, laughing at how stupid this was. He felt high and in love, and patted around on the bed to find her hand. He squeezed it, looking at her dreamily.

“I love you,” he said, and the frightened part of his mind expected her to stop laughing and shove him out of bed, demanding him to leave. Instead she kept laughing, closed her eyes, rolled up to him to snuggle and kept giggling against his shoulder. She’d responded as if what she was saying was just a fact of life, as simple as breathing or the laws of gravity. Like it was a fact that had never been disputed or questioned, because it was just as clear as day.

_I love you, too, Shane._


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to the lovely people who read this fic. I just want to say thank you for all the amazing comments and kudos I've gotten, because I appreciate every one. I hope you all have a really great 2017.  
> If any of you lovelies want to follow me on tumblr, I'm at abyssickly.tumblr.com <3

Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so determined – or the last time he’d gotten up before noon on a day off, but there he was on Esther’s porch with her gift standing beside him. Puffed, he ripped the tarp out from under it, folded it up and chucked it to the ground just out of the way. Catching his breath, he approached the door.

“Just one second,” Esther called groggily from inside, probably still drinking her morning tea. When the door open she was initially pleased, her eyes lighting up when she saw Shane’s face, his cheeks bright red from the cold. With his shoulders up around his ears, he took his hands out of his pockets and made a ‘ta-da!’ motion to her gift.

Her eyes widened and her smile fell off her face.

“You bought me a couch!?” she asked, and her smiled returned wider than ever as she began to laugh. In her dressing gown and slippers she took the few steps towards him, grabbed his face in her warm hands, and kissed him. He took her in his arms immediately, wanting nothing more than to push her inside and lock them both in for the day.

Still laughing, she broke the kiss and looked to her new bright yellow 3-seater couch. Then, with love in her eyes, looked back to him. He only smiled, his scruffy face too adorable to handle.

“I know your favourite colour is yellow,” he said, his breath a plume of steam.

“How did you know that?” she asked, trying to remember a time when she had ever told him that trivial fact.

“Jas told me,” he said, “it came up in conversation when… whenever you moved here. She asked you when you met, like kids do, like your favourite colour is the most important thing about you. I just remembered for some reason.” He chuckled. “She came home and said the new girl’s name was Esther and her favourite colour was yellow.”

Esther had been given many thoughtful gifts throughout the years, but something about the stupidly bright couch on her porch struck her as the sweetest damn thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“You’re the cutest man on the planet, Shane,” she said, shaking her head. He was still kind of puffed when she smiled, his expression nothing short of relieved.

“There’s still three hours until the festival starts if you want to come inside,” she said, tugging him in the direction of her open door.

“Esther I love you,” he said quickly, and it came out like the first time. It was only a few nights ago they’d said it in those sweat-soaked hours late at night, just after she’d rolled off his naked body. The way he’d said it now, standing vulnerable at her front door, it was automatic. A confession. A slip of the tongue that so badly wanted to happen.

“Why are you saying that?” she asked, smirking nervously. She remembered just as well admitting she loved him too – of course she did, it wasn’t a lie – but now she was staring him in the eyes. It felt different and real.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, a huff of laughter coming nervously from his lips. “I just love you.”

 Esther’s eyes changed and the corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Help me get this couch inside and I’ll love you, too.”

Something cheeky boiled up inside him.

“Love me _on_ the couch?”

She laughed, shrugging in a _maybe if you’re lucky_ kind of way, and circled around to the other side of the big yellow couch so they could push it inside. They would end up falling onto it together in laughter, Shane’s jacket already half way off by the time they landed.

He thought when he was kissing her neck about how he’d gone to the city for a special custom made bright yellow couch, and how after he ordered it he walked hands in pockets down the street past a jewellery store. How he’d peered in the window just for something to look at, and how his eyes settled on a really, really nice looking engagement ring.


	17. Chapter 17

Spring rolled around and the Flower Dance came in a very different way than it had the year before. Esther smiled at her calendar, checking that the date was right and it really was the Flower Dance. It was, and after making sure the animals were fed and the crops were watered, she took a shower, got into the nicest dress she could find and started walking.

She remembered how she’d come in the year before, kind of miserable and not wanting to show at all. How she sat down next to Shane, not really thinking about it. She liked him a little, just because he intrigued her and he _was_ handsome underneath that self-loathing. But now, as she walked into the festival, her eyes narrowed only on him.

They saw each other from across the festival grounds and they smiled in unison, but Esther’s eyes had lit up. As she walked towards him she noticed every little detail. How he’d shaven, how he’d got his hair cut, how he bought a new suit, and then, as she wrapped her arms around him without thinking, how he’d bought a new cologne.

“Hello,” he said, tensing when she went to hug him but loosening into it. She knew he hated everyone seeing, but she couldn’t help herself. She let go and stood back, as much as she would have loved to kiss him.

“You look… really great, Shane,” she said. She felt the soft ends of his hair. “I like the haircut. It did need a trim.” She smiled.

“It did,” he said. “Now, before I chicken out, will you dance with me?”

She fully expected it to be her that asked him to dance, and for him to shy away and say no. But instead, this.

“Of course,” she said, and grabbed his hand. He smirked and looked at the ground, a strand of hair falling over his forehead.

“Marnie asked me before if my girlfriend was coming to the dance,” he said, looking up nervously. “Is she?”

“Are you asking if I’m your girlfriend, Shane?” Esther asked, feeling the heat in her cheeks rise. He smirked in that way kids do when they’re trying not to get caught out in a lie. It was so cheeky and adorable that she found herself wanting to kiss him again.

“You know if I say I am, that means you’re my boyfriend,” she said. Shane paused like he hadn’t even considered that.

“You know I’m not even a little bit worthy of that. You’re a _lot_ more attractive than I am. You know that, right?”

Esther laughed. “You’re ridiculous.” She put her arm in his and hooked like they might go skipping away into the sunset together. “You know if we’re boyfriend and girlfriend we’re going to have to start admitting that we’re together to other people.”

Shane cringed for a second, then thought.

“They’re all going to be so shocked that your standards are so low,” he laughed in a joking-but-totally-serious kind of way. She gave him a stern look.

“Shane, I love you. I didn’t lie about that.”

He only looked at her, his arm coming around her body.

“I love you, too.”

The music started and it seemed so distant for a while, until Lewis called out for the dance to begin. When Shane smiled again it was unlike anything Esther had ever seen. It was like a long lost soul coming back. He looked like a different man. No hunch, no five o’clock shadow, – even if she loved that about him – and no self-hate stirring in his eyes for once. He looked like he’d sweep her off her feet and go right into that dance completely confident that a man like him _could_ be with a girl like her.

“I will absolutely take this dance, Shane.”

And so they danced.

* * *

“I’ve never seen you smile so much, Shane,” Marnie said, smirking at him as she wiped over the counter with a wet cloth. “In fact I’ve never even seen you dance before. I didn’t know something like that could even happen.”

Shane gave Marnie a nervous smile, shrugging.

“I felt like something different.”

Marnie put the cloth down and circled around the counter towards him.

“Now you be honest with me, Shane,” she said. “You and that girl spend an awful lot of time together and I’ve never seen anyone get you to dance before. You love her don’t you?”

 _Do I ever,_ he thought. While she was talking he kind of half-slipped into the memory of Esther’s laughter as he awkwardly tried his best to dance. _I’ve got it bad._

Shane’s face twitched and that was the only answer Marnie needed. She smiled smugly, but it wasn’t enough for her, even then.

“You’re going to have to tell me eventually,” she said. “Have you kissed her?”

Shane felt tiny and cornered, shrinking into himself. Slowly he nodded, and Marnie’s eyes lit up.

“More than once?”

“Do I win a million dollars after this questionnaire?” Shane said, flustered.

“Just be honest with me,” she said. “You and that girl were dancing around laughing, giving each other all kinds of puppy-dog eyes.”

“There are no puppy eyes,” he argued, “I really like her, alright? She’s the only person that’s ever cared about me like this.”

Marnie frowned even in her smile.

“You know she liked you as soon as she met you,” she said. Shane looked up at her, a little gobsmacked.

“What?”

“She went out of her way to see you, to talk to you, to give you gifts… she saw you and knew exactly how important you were going to be in her life.”

“How would you even know that?” Shane mumbled, sounding like he did as a teenager with a face full of acne.

“I have eyes,” Marnie answered. “Also, I know you’re official now. You don’t need to answer any more questions.”

Marnie winked as she turned away, and all Shane could do was rub his face with his hands and continue forward to where he was going in the first place; Jas’s room.

* * *

The door creaked open after a soft knock and a _‘come in!’_ from Jas, who was sitting on the floor with a dolly in each hand, walking them around outside the dollhouse, their stiff arms extended at each other.

“Can I come and talk to you for a little while?” Shane asked, hanging barely inside, guarded by the door. Jas looked at him a little confused, then nodded. He came in, closing the door carefully behind him.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong?” Jas asked, her little eyes beaming up at him, frightened.

“No, of course not,” he said, sitting down on the floor with her and crossing his legs.

“Do you want to play dollies?” Jas asked. Shane grabbed the dolly he always played with when she asked him to join. It was the one that looked most like him. Jas had even cut the legs of the doll’s pants in half so they made shorts, just like Shane’s.

“You know how I tell you secrets?” Shane asked, putting his dolly inside the toy car and half-heartedly driving it around. Jas was busy putting a new outfit on another doll, brows furrowed and nose crinkled in that way she always did when she was concentrating.

“Yeah?”

“And you know how I really like Esther? The farmer?”

“Everyone knows,” Jas said, and his heart sunk. He sighed and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, exhausted by the day and wanting only to curl up in bed. He knew, however, that if he didn’t get things off his chest he’d only lay awake all night. “Auntie Marnie was really happy that you danced together today.”

“That sounds like her,” Shane nodded. Jas sighed and looked up at Shane. She looked as tired as he felt, and he noted not to keep her up much longer. It had passed both of their bedtimes. She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to say something. “Do you believe in true love, Jas?”

It was the stupidest question on the planet to ever ask a girl of her age. She believed in unicorns and fairies, and she believed more than anything in true love. For the first time her little eyes lit up over the idea of her godfather and Esther together. This was serious – this was _true love!_

“Yes!” she announced, because she couldn’t get anything else out. Shane smiled at how cute and innocent she was, and looked down at his doll in the car, still wheeling it around on the floor just to busy his hands.

“When I went and got Esther’s couch – the yellow one we talked about – I saw these rings… you know the rings you give to people when you want to get married?”

Jas’s whole face lit up like a firework.

“Really!?”

“Shh!” Shane shushed her, but laughed at the same time.

“Did you get one!? Are you getting married!?”

“No, I didn’t get one,” Shane said, “but I really considered it.”

Jas had never looked more disappointed in her life. She slammed one dolly on the ground in frustration.

“But if it’s true love, you gotta marry her!”

“I couldn’t get a ring,” Shane admitted, putting on his best frown.

“Why?” she whined.

“I couldn’t get one without my favourite goddaughter’s opinion.”

* * *

 

 _Two against the world,_ Shane thought, walking down the street with Jas’s hand in his the next morning. She was looking around at the city, amazed at how big and tall everything was. Admittedly, he felt the same, and there was a comfort in having her with him this time.

“Alright,” he said, picking her up as they reached the jewellery shop. She clung onto his side with her arms around his neck and looked at all the beautiful jewellery inside the window. “Pick one.”

Jas leaned towards the window so far that her forehead almost touched the glass. Beautiful, big, shiny rings of every shape and style were glittering in the sun, and she was in love.

“I hope I get a really big ring when a boy wants to marry me,” she said. Shane smiled and kissed her temple.

“It’s not about the ring it’s about the boy you want to marry. If you really love him and he really loves you—”

“Yeah but I want a really big diamond,” Jas interrupted, and Shane laughed to himself.

“Which one would you choose?”

“That one,” she said, her forehead now flat against the glass, as well as her index finger pointing right at the biggest and shiniest ring she could see. It was on a pedestal higher than the others, the price on a tiny little tag as if even the store owners didn’t want you to see how much it cost.

“How about something a little smaller?” Shane asked. Even if he had the money for that kind of ring, he wouldn’t have gotten it. Esther was a simple woman with simple loves – of course she was, if she was going out with _him_ – and he pictured her hating how big that diamond was. Jas made a fart noise with her lips in disappointment and scanned the rest for a second best.

“What about in this section?” Shane asked, circling the side with the simpler looking rings instead. Jas looked at it thoughtfully.

“That one?” she asked with a little less confidence. Her heart was still set on the most expensive one in the window. Shane peered down and knew instantly. It was the little silver one with the triangle shape at its top, one little diamond fitting perfectly in that triangle, and then three tiny diamonds at either side. It was simple, it was shiny, and it was perfect.

“Jas, that was such a good choice we’re going to have to celebrate with ice cream.”

Jas gasped and hugged him so hard he was sure he was going to suffocate, but what a way to go. They walked inside hand in hand, Shane slipping his wallet from his back pocket.

* * *

The bus came into Stardew Valley and the doors came clunking open. From the top step Jas jumped right out with an ice cream in one hand and a bag in the other, almost tripping and falling face first into the dirt. Even as she tripped, she still held her rainbow ice cream in the air to save it. She laughed at herself when she regained her footing and continued eating.

“Careful, kiddo, jeez,” Shane said, stepping out of the bus with his own ice cream. Chocolate.

The bus was taking off behind them when he looked up and saw Esther there with her horse, Grover, repairing a bit of fence that had broken in the last storm. With more panic than he’d ever experienced in his life, he shoved the entire bag from the jewellery store upwards into his hoodie.

“How are you doing, Jas,” Esther asked cheerfully, standing up and dusting off her knees. Her forehead was shiny with sweat, her hair was a mess and she was covered with dirt from a full day’s work, plus the work on a fence that wasn’t even her responsibility. Never had she looked so gorgeous. “What have you been up to?”

“Nothing!” Jas said, and ran for home, her bag swinging from her arm. Esther watched her go, a little puzzled but not completely put off, and looked back to Shane.

“ _She’s_ in a hurry.”

“I bought her a new doll while we were out and she’s probably dying to go play with it,” Shane shrugged. It was true, after the ice cream shop they’d gone into a toy store.

“You’re a good father to her, Shane,” Esther said, putting her arms out to hug him and kiss his smiling face. She stopped herself instead, pulling away. He worried for a second. “Sorry, I probably stink, I’ve been working all day.”

Shane smirked.

“You’re beautiful.”

“What?” she laughed, “I’m quite the opposite right now, just letting you know.”

Instead of arguing with her he brought her into his arms and hugged her close. Then the dread filled him. More dread than his body could humanly handle.

“What’s under your hoodie?” she asked, feeling his tummy where he’d hidden the bag. She could feel the sharp edges of the tiny box inside and the crinkling of the bag.

“A present for Jas,” he lied, “she didn’t know I got it.”

She smiled, believing him.

“Well you don’t have to hide it,” she said, and went to take it. Shane grabbed her wrist to stop her, pushing her hand away.

“W-what?” Esther stuttered, taking back her hands.

“Sorry, it’s just… there’s, uh…” he stalled, “there’s something in there for you and I don’t want you to see.”

He couldn’t think of a better lie, and really, he was telling the truth. She rolled her eyes.

“Stop buying me things!”

He laughed in spite of himself.

“Says you, bringing me gifts when I didn’t even like you!”

“That doesn’t count,” she smiled, “I was _growing_ those hot peppers and you’re spending money on me.”

“You could have sold those hot peppers and made money, so _technically_ you still lost money over me like I lose money over you.”

She squinted at him.

“Fine, you win, but you still need to stop buying me gifts.”

“Make me.”

Shane was a firm believer that saying ‘make me’ at any point in a conversation would boost the sexual tension by over a hundred percent, and Esther had just proven it.

“Do you want to come to mine tonight?” she asked after a long pause, in which she was thinking the exact same thing about sexual tension. Shane just smiled.

“Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends I know realistically you probably shouldn't get into engagement territory with your significant other this fast but god damn this is a fanfic and I do what I want
> 
> come talk to me at abyssickly.tumblr.com because I am shamelessly promoting myself and I enjoy talking to people!!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW warning my fellow sinners

When Shane walked into the ranch to quickly put the ring safely in his room, Jas nearly ran into him she was running at him so fast.

“It’s an emergency!” she shouted, tugging at his arm.

“What!?” he almost shouted back.

“You can’t give her the ring! It’s not tradition!”

He looked at her bewildered and puzzled.

“You gotta get her the mermaid pendant, remember? It’s what we _do_ here!”

“Jas, that’s old tradition,” he said, suddenly remembering that old tale. It would have been so important to Jas to use the pendant instead, but he wasn’t taking back such a gorgeous ring to replace it with an old conch on a string.

“I know but it’s _a mermaid pendant,_ ” Jas emphasised, tugging on his hand even harder. Shane sighed. He knew, deep inside him, that Esther would love that old tradition. She would laugh and blush – that’s if she accepted it at all. He swallowed and knelt down to Jas’s height, hugging her and looking her in the eyes.

“What if I do both?” he asked. Jas’s eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically.

“That’s even better!” she said. “When are you going to ask her?”

Shane shrugged, he truly didn’t know.

“I’m going to her house tonight, though, Jas. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re not proposing tonight, are you?” she asked, “You don’t even have the pendant!”

He held her shoulder and stood.

“No, Jas, I’m going to get the pendant.”

“Okay, tell her I said hi!” Jas said, and with that she was off, back to her room to play.

* * *

“Jas says hi,” Shane said, closing the door behind him as he walked into Esther’s house. When he knocked she just called _‘come in!’_ , but only when he turned around did he realise he was speaking to the empty kitchen.

“I thought you’d take longer,” Esther called, and he realised she wasn’t in the room. Her voice was coming from the bathroom door, open just a crack, which he could see through her bedroom door.

“Are you in the shower?” he called back, wandering towards her voice.

“Yep,” she answered over the sound of running water, “you can come in if you like.”

He slowly and nervously approached the bathroom door, or the ‘ensuite’, and pushed the door open with one gentle hand. Through the foggy glass he couldn’t see her nakedness, only the colour of her skin as one big person-shaped blur. Her arms were up, hands in her hair, lathering it up with shampoo.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He imagined the soap running down her chest, her curves, _that body._

“It’s fine,” she said in a sort of laugh. He gazed around the bathroom. He looked over to the other door, the one that went right into the living room, and noticed the hooks on the back, navy blue towels hanging off of them. He noted that old farmhouses had really stupid floorplans. Two doors in one bathroom was ridiculous.

“I thought I’d take a quick shower before you got here,” she said, “I didn’t realise you’d be right here.”

“Sorry,” he said, hands in his pockets.

“Don’t be sorry, I’m glad you’re here,” Esther said, and his head snapped in her direction as the sliding shower door came open, her wet fingers around its edge. He could only see her wet hair around her face, _that beautiful face,_ and nothing else. She’d finished with her hair. “Do you want to join me?”

It wasn’t the first time she made him feel like he was having a heart attack, and hopefully it wouldn’t be the last. He swallowed and looked her over, even if the only figure he could get was blurred by glass. When his eyes returned to hers, she was waiting for an answer.

“Shane?”

“Are you sure you want to share that small space with me?” he asked in the same self-deprecating tone he said most things.

“I had the bathroom renovated a little since I moved here,” she said, smiling, “the shower’s bigger than it used to be.”

Shane nodded, smirking in spite of himself, and shrugged off his hoodie. Esther’s face lit up with excitement and she closed the door again.

“Are you sure you want to see me naked?” Shane asked as he got down to his boxer briefs. It was her last chance.

“Stop asking questions and get in here,” she laughed. He swallowed his fear and pondered how _bright_ it was in this bathroom, and how much she’d see of him that might’ve been hidden by dimly lit rooms.

Naked, he opened the door just a little. She was standing faced away from him, running a bar of soap down her arm. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a seductive movement, but it sure as hell _was._

“Come on,” she encouraged, smirking over her shoulder at him. He came in, closing the door behind him. She was exquisite.

Without thinking he wrapped his arms around her, leaning down just enough for his mouth to be at her ear. He felt the hot water run through his hair and down his body, which was the best feeling he could have experienced up until her butt pressed against his crotch. Then the water couldn’t compete – _this,_ he thought, pressing forward so that he could feel a cheek on each side of his half-mast erection, was the best feeling.

“Were you really surprised that I came back so early,” he asked cheekily, “or did you just stay in the shower until I could catch you.”

Her ass swayed side to side against him, and he let out a small, discreet moan into her ear.

“Perhaps. Doesn’t that just prove I really _do_ want to see you naked?” she said, one hand gently touching his hip. He grinned. She was mischievous in a way that made her out to be so innocent until he caught her out.

Pushing his luck, even though he wasn’t at all, he wrapped an arm around her and slid it down her stomach and between her legs, cupping her teasingly. Her whole body was warm and wet, and it didn’t stop between her legs.

“Didn’t think you’d be so game, Shane,” Esther said.

“Am I not allowed?” he asked in a wavering tone, his hand loosening. Before he could let her go, her hand came over his, encouraging him by pressing it back against her. She was a strong little thing.

“I didn’t invite you into the shower to stand and watch,” she said, and her smile turned into something so white hot and seductive he thought he might slip and fall right then and there.

“So if I was to…” he said slowly, stroking one finger up and down before delving in between her lips, rubbing her off slowly and lovingly. Her legs squeezed and she pressed against his hand, then back onto his now full erection. Her mouth opened in a sigh, her eyes closing for a long, drawn out moment.

His free hand was around her midsection, but he couldn’t help himself. He lifted one hand to her breast, giving it an ever so gentle squeeze, tweaking her nipple to see how she’d react. Her shoulders moved against his chest, her body aching for contact with his.

With just a tiny moan she turned around, and that image he had in his head of soapy water running down her breasts was nowhere near as good as seeing the real thing. His eyes must have boggled out of his head, because she laughed a little, putting a hand gently to each side of his neck before bringing him into her kiss. He could do nothing but give into it, his hands resting on the curves of her hips before sliding down over her ass and giving another experimental squeeze. The response was her body once again pressed onto his erection, which was between them, desperately wanting attention.

He kissed her hard and slow, stroking her round, wet ass. Suddenly he was being pulled, then rotated around so that they switched sides, and pushed against the tile wall. She gave him a look that he was sure he should have understood. Then she kissed him again, just a little.

When she pulled away, hands on his chest, she only looked down. Then, unexpectedly, crouched down to follow her eyes. His heart nearly shot out of his throat.

She wrapped her hand around his erection, her bottom lip on its head, and looked up at him with big, innocent eyes.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, unable to control himself. He was positive there was nothing sexy about what he’d said but it didn’t seem to bother her. She just kept direct eye contact with him while sinking him into her warm, open mouth.

She shivered, hands on the tile wall behind him like it might save him, and made a high moan that he didn’t even expect.

“Esther, _god,_ ” he whispered, one hand coming with a will of its own to the back of her head. His fingers curled through the wet strands of her hair, soft like silk. He was amazed at how any creature could be so perfect. _“Yeees—”_

She looked up at him again with big, dark eyes. She smiled, and he winced in the best way possible.

“Es—”

He felt himself coming closer and closer to release as her tongue made its way upwards on his shaft, then giving a light little tease at his head.

“Please, I’m gonna—” he began, but her head continued to bop slow and affectionately. He didn’t want to finish in her mouth – well, he did, but not for her – and with a hand on her cheek he pulled himself reluctantly away. It felt like hell to leave her mouth, but it felt selfish. She stood up with her hands on his body, which eventually came to his shoulders.

Her wet eyelashes fluttered, her hair in silky waves around her shoulders. He allowed himself a touch and controlled his breathing as best he could, before putting an arm back around himself and shutting off the water.

Only a minute later the bathroom door came open into Esther’s room, where she was ever so lovingly pushed down onto her bed, dripping wet in more ways than one. Neither of them had even slightly towelled off, which was only a concern in Esther’s mind for a second before she felt Shane’s breath between her open legs. She looked down at him, his face a little too serious, but scared all the same. He watched her as he kissed her thighs, arms wrapped around them to spread her.

His soft, wet hair tickled the sensitive insides of her thighs, his stubble scratching her skin in a way that she loved, but it was all in the tender kisses, a few at one side and a few at the other, before his tongue parted her lips and her head rolled back. She dug her fingers into the sheets below her, rolling her hips into his open mouth.

“O-oh,” she whined, her hip movements getting more erratic, but small. He licked long and hot, her thighs squeezing a little around his head. Flicking his tongue fast earned a hand in his hair, and sucking just a little on her clit earned a pull. He moaned at the feeling of her, widening her thighs so she was spread as far as she could go. Her hips lifted into his mouth, and _shit,_ he wanted this. He wanted this so bad that he could feel his entire body burning. If he were a rougher man, he might have bitten.

“I-I’m—” she muttered, signalling that she was almost there, and impulsively, he stopped. Just like that. She moaned, unsatisfied and wanting him back, but he did nothing but kiss her soft thighs and crawl up her body. She grabbed him and kissed him as soon as he was in reach, wrapping her legs around him and remembering in a second how soaked they both were. Fingers back in his hair, she pressed her hips against him.

“Please,” she breathed, and that was only consent to what he was already planning on doing. He reached down, directing himself, and in that moment their eyes met. Nothing had felt more real or more right. He pressed into her slowly, never more gentle, and gauged her eyes. Her mouth opened and her eyes fluttered with pleasure, and damn, that was all he needed.

He thrust slow, _real slow,_ one hand caressing the soft curves of her body, then her ass, the other hand intertwined with hers above them both, flat against the bed.

“F-fuck,” he huffed into her neck, speeding up simply because his body left him no other option. He needed her like he needed air.

They were already so close, put there by each other and now falling over the edge hand in hand. It was simultaneous, and never had Esther felt such love for him, nor Shane for her, as they did at that moment, moving together, wet and spent, and horribly, horribly smitten.

* * *

It was raining when they woke up the next morning, caught up in each other like two puzzle pieces just meant for each other. Shane was on his back, arms around the exhausted little farmer cuddled up on top of him, rocked to sleep by his breathing and the rise and fall of his chest. Shane’s eyes opened and for a while he just stared at the ceiling.

“Esther?” he asked, knowing she was awake.

“Mm-hmm?”

“If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?”

There was a long pause that felt dream-like. He questioned if he’d really spoken at all in the long silence that followed. But then she lifted her head, and her expression was nowhere near as offended looking as he’d expected. Not offended at all. Rather, amazed.

“Is this a hypothetical again?” she asked softly. He didn’t even know. They stared at one another, Shane looking a little frightened.

“It’s… I don’t know. But I mean… if I asked you…” he said, “I mean I don’t have the ring on me but—”

“You bought a ring?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears. She was so unbelievably flattered, and yet he felt like he’d spoiled it. They started to laugh at each other – _this is so stupid._

“It’s not the most expensive thing in the world, but—”

“Shane you could propose with a ring pop and I’d still say yes,” she said. He was happy with that, then, as the words processed in his mind, ecstatic. His eyes lit right up.

“You’d say yes?”

“Shane, yes, _yes,_ of course.”

He looked up at the ceiling again, grinning like a fool.

“Shit, I better propose to you then.”

Esther laughed, putting a hand on her neck and kissing his dumb face.

“You better.”


	19. Chapter 19

Thinking of how Marnie had screamed, _screeched,_ when she heard the news, Shane stands under the flowery white archway with his hands together, Lewis beside him. His eyes stray to the stands and he sees Marnie gleaming, trying to contain her excitement. He turns away blushing, knowing that this will not be the last time he blushes today – their wedding day.

The music starts and Jas makes her appearance as flower girl, her hair all done up. She’s as thrilled as Marnie – and just about everyone else – and Shane gives her a wide smile of pride. Jas was so nervous about being the flower girl.

And then there she is, Esther, the prettiest he’s ever seen her. A goddess among mere mortals like him. The crowd goes speechless, and it seems like the only thing in the entire world is Shane, Esther, and the blurry group around them that is now fading out of existence. His eyes are glued to her.

Esther stands in front of him, grinning ear to ear, trying hard to make eye contact but only blushing and turning away.

“Hello,” she says quietly, Shane watching her with all the love in the world.

“Hello,” he responds, taking her hands. Next to them, Lewis begins to speak, but Esther is more focused on how her legs seem to be giving out, and that stupid, handsome smile on her soon-to-be husband’s face. How he shaved for the occasion, how he wore that cologne she likes. She looks him in the eyes, her cheeks flushed red.

You may kiss the bride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to all the readers of this fic, especially those who were nice enough to leave kudos and comments. They make my day <3  
> This fic is over, sadly, and I thought I'd give it a short and sweet ending. Thanks again for reading this drivel <3


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